


The Guardian

by SimplexityJane



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Page 23, Alternate Universe, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 46,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8757907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: Regina took a moment to have her panic attack while Tink was still with her instead of bottling it up and running back to the castle. Then she met Robin.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complete. I will be posting a chapter a day, and should be finished by the twenty-third. There is canon-typical violence here, so be warned.

**Once upon a time… well, you know the rest. The wicked witch was defeated, and the evil queen was slain, and the hero swung his sword into the dragon’s neck and, miraculously, beheaded a _dragon_ in one blow. The prince and princess were wed, and they had a baby (but don’t ask how, or do, and watch faces turn red).**

**And everyone lived happily ever after.**

**First piece of advice: don’t believe everything you hear. Second: there’s no such thing as happily ever after. There’s no such thing as _ever after_ , and that’s fine. People are born and they live and they die. **

**Third: always ask questions. How did they defeat the wicked witch, really? What does it mean to slay a queen, or even a dragon? What happens _after_ the last page? **

**Because there are no endings. And sometimes, defeating evil (whatever that means) doesn’t work out as well as you’d expect, or in the way you think it should.**

**And that’s the question you should always be asking. Even if there is no happily ever after. How?**

**Here, _how_ started a long time ago. But stories don’t start at the beginning, not really.**

The room was crowding full of guests, and Snow White was slowly having a nervous breakdown. She’d sat down at her mirror no less than _eight times_ , adjusting this, worrying over that. By the time she was ready to walk down the aisle, Regina was fairly sure her hair was going to look like it had when she’d still been living in a tree. The bridesmaids – Red the only one counting as a _maid_ , and she only in the oldest sense of the word – were getting antsy.

“Should I let my hair down? I mean, I don’t ever wear my hair like this, and maybe it’s too much.”

Regina pressed the bridge of her nose, fighting a headache that had started when they dressed her in _red velvet_ this morning. When they’d brought out the _corset_ , she’d seared it with a fireball. She was currently regretting accepting the _invitation_ to Snow’s wedding, and she wasn’t thinking about being forced into maid of honor status because she really _might_ set something on fire.

She understood why they had to have a second wedding, of course. Snow White’s and Prince Charming’s kingdom needed the reassurance that the monarchs were united, and that Zelena and King George truly _were_ defeated. They needed the ceremony, but _Regina_ didn’t need the headache.

“Snow White, I am going to flambé you.” She forced herself to smile. “Someone hand me a baby so I don’t actually do that.”

Red, who had claimed dark-haired Heather, was the closest, and Regina took her with a sigh of relief. Abigail looked like she was willing to trade Daphne, who was currently doing her best impression of a dying woman. Regina took her in her free arm, fuzzy red hair brushing the velvet, and she quieted.

Thank the gods. The twins – _twins_ , she’d shrieked a few times in the beginning of this pregnancy – curled their sock-clad feet together, falling asleep.

Red was currently convincing Snow White that everything was going to be okay, that she looked beautiful and perfect and all that other wedding crap that Regina hadn’t had to deal with, her wedding being much, _much_ less formal than this.

She wanted to be back in Sherwood Forest. Robin would rub her feet, Roland would pretend to be a knight facing a dragon (though he was starting to actually, well, _conjure_ _things_ that resembled dragons even if they weren’t actually _alive_ ), and Amber would send tiny wisps of smoke his way. She was a good big sister, especially with the age difference.

She and Amethyst flittered into the room, Amethyst doing everything but _dragging_ Roland behind her, and Robin and Marian took the twins from Regina. Robin kissed Regina lightly on her temple, and she leaned into him. Amber tugged on her arm, and she smiled down at her oldest child. Her dark red curls were pinned up in an ornate style that Regina _knew_ was uncomfortable.

“If you get married, promise me you’ll ask Aunt Tink to replicate your father’s and mine instead of doing this.”

Amber gave her a considering look, and Regina flitted a look over to Robin with a silent _she gets this from you_ flying between them.

“We don’t have a castle,” was her final verdict. “I don’t think the clearings back home would fit this many people, either.”

Ten-year-olds. Thank the gods for their logic.

“Thank you,” she said. “I suppose this means we’ll be expected very soon?” she asked Robin, who nodded.

Amethyst flew up in the air with her excitement, brown hair curling in her created wind.

“I _love_ weddings,” she piped up. “Love love _love them!_ ”

“You get that from your mother, dear. Please stay on the floor during the ceremony,” Marian said, and Regina wished for an ounce of her patience, but, then again, it had been honed over years of being married to a pixie. “We have to go. Good luck, Snow White.”

Ouch. She was still irritated that Tinker Bell hadn’t been forced into the wedding party. Personally, Regina wished she could invent a body-switching spell that didn’t depend on blood relation.

“Now, Roland, remember, you’re the ring _carrier_ , even if they say it’s about bears,” Amber said, turning to her little brother. Roland pouted. She was entirely serious, blue eyes sorrowful as she said, “I know. Maybe at my wedding we’ll have bears. That would be fun.”

Regina heard Robin’s snort of laughter from the hall. There was a distinct note of _she gets_ this _from you_ in that laugh.

They filed into the hall, and Regina took Snow’s arm with a squeeze, even though she was annoyed.

“Be glad he listens to her,” she murmured in her once-stepdaughter’s ear. “I’m still surprised he didn’t insist on coming to the wedding covered in _fur_.”

So Snow White was laughing quietly when she entered the Grand Hall, and then she went still and awestruck when she saw Prince Charming.

Thank the gods the wedding was short. Her breasts would have ached with milk otherwise, and she did not need to soak this dress.

And then _Zelena_ showed up.

“Home _now_ ,” she snapped, and Amber and Amethyst dragged Roland over to Robin and Marian and Tink, all of them disappearing in a cloud of leaf-green and wheat-yellow.

Zelena, green as ever, smiled with lips painted red as life’s own blood.

“Oh, my dear little sister, I thought we were past all of that.”

And _that_ was their beginning, even though it was no beginning at all.

* * *

Regina glared at Snow White’s pregnant belly, years of experience with women in Sherwood Forest telling her _exactly_ how close she was to delivery. She barely stopped herself from frying the fucking Blue Fairy out of existence, because she _knew_ what game _she_ was playing. Bringing in that tree with _just_ enough time to send the _baby_ , not the mother. She should’ve brought Tinker Bell. There would have been a fight to the death. It would have been glorious. It was only for Gepetto and Pinocchio’s sake that she didn’t tell everyone that the tree had room for _two_.

She understood Gepetto. Without magic, Pinocchio would be – it wouldn’t be pretty.

“He told you your daughter was going to be some _savior_ , and you gave him her _name_ ,” she repeated, arms crossed over her chest. “Snow, sometimes I wonder if you ever stopped being that naïve child who couldn’t see you were being manipulated.” She said it with exactly the amount of heat it deserved, and Charming came up behind his wife, protective as a bear with a cub. His mother was glaring too, and Regina wondered when _I saved your precious life_ and _broke the unbreakable curse on your daughter-in-law’s womb_ had stopped mattering.

Probably when she refused to go along with their plan to lure Rumplestiltskin into their trap. So-called Good was like that – whatever methods they used were Good so long as it stopped Evil, and gods forbid you question them.

Prince Thomas was _still_ missing.

But Snow pressed her hand to her husband’s arm, looking up in a sign Regina recognized from her own marriage (though that look was usually directed _at_ her). She turned back to her, and Regina wondered how in the hell Zelena had thought that she could kill _this_ woman without ripping her heart out of her chest herself. Honestly, a sleeping curse was just _boring_.

“I _knew_ I’d have to make a deal, Regina, and I was willing to pay the price. I know that names are important in magic, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t have any use for it in the new land. All of our memories are going to be wiped away. And _she_ doesn’t know. But _thank you_ for your _concern_.” Her glare was this side of poisonous. Regina, who had taught the girl as much magic as she was capable of before the war, frowned.

She wanted to scream at Snow, because Rumplestiltskin wasn’t just a sorcerer – he was the _Dark One_ , and the Dark One _knew_ _every realm_. It wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t do any magic that hadn’t been prepared here (and so _much_ had been prepared here, _fuck_ ). Whatever deal he made with Zelena, which she _knew_ he’d done, he would remember. Why were they even friends, if Snow White couldn’t grasp that simple fact?

Belle, at the table with them in Tinker Bell’s place, said nothing, but when Regina looked her way for the briefest moment, her nostrils flared in a silent message. _Shut up, be quiet, don’t give anything away because the Forces of Good won’t believe you anyway._

At least _some_ people had common sense.

She’d left Tinker Bell at home because she also possessed this quality, she remembered. This would have been a thousand times harder with her here, and not just because of the Blue Fairy. Someone had to see to Sherwood while she was gone, and Tink was the only one who had the power to do it.

Regina sat down at the table, pursing her lips. Snow sat so that they could see each other but weren’t face to face. She wondered what Zelena was thinking, watching them plan this. She and her – well, they _certainly_ weren’t lovers, but they _were_ married – _husband_ would be watching this, despite Zelena’s reduction in power.

“I should have never shattered that damned pendant,” she said. She fiddled with her wedding band, then looked at Snow. Her mother had been – _was_ – something horrible and wrong, but she’d taught her _exactly_ how to act when she knew she was being watched. Zelena would see what she wanted to see, her _desperate_ little sister, the one who’d cried when Zelena didn’t _care_ that they did love each other, once, planning one last gambit.

Snow would only see that, too. Regina had been an expert at façades before Snow was _born_.

“What aren’t you telling us?”

Surprisingly, it was Charming who caught the little movements, the twitches and false restraint. She didn’t sigh, but she’d gotten their attention, and she nodded. There was just a touch of guilt there. Like she’d been waiting for this push.

“If someone _did_ remember, it could be a significant advantage. Zelena _will_ remember this land, as well as all of the hate she has because of it. From what I know, she can’t shape the Dark Curse completely, but she _can_ shape our memories in ways that could be dangerous to everyone. If I know her, and I do, she’ll make us hate each other. It’s easier to destroy people when they think they’re alone.” She’d learned that from her mother so many times that it was seared into her brain.

“You can make a spell so that we’ll remember this?” Belle asked.

“Memory potions are hard to make. They require very rare ingredients. I can only make one before the curse comes.”

Everyone looked at her, and then at each other. She wished she were at _home_ , with Robin and the children and her people. They had less than a day left of peace with the curse ready to be cast.

“You’re going to take it,” Snow said, voice breaking. Regina didn’t look at her, turned her face to the side just so, and it looked like she cared that Snow would be _betrayed_ by what seemed to be an incontrovertible fact.

“She wants me to _suffer_ , Snow. I’m the only one who can take the potion and survive her. She’s ripping me away from my _home_ , my _people_ , my _children_ – it’s the only way. If I know what she took from me, _she_ wins. She’ll have power.” She let real tears drop down her cheeks, wiping them away hastily and steeling herself. “If anyone else does this, _they’ll die_. She’ll remind _me_ every day for the rest of my life that I _failed_.”

Which would be worse, but was also exactly the kind of sacrifice that Zelena thought Regina was _actually_ capable of. She’d done it before, after all.

“I’m going to talk to your prisoner, because believe me, he made a deal with _her_ too. I’m not going to give _him_ any potion,” she said as they stood up, “and I’m not afraid of him like you think I should be.”

She swirled away in a cloud of purple-tinged silver, appearing outside of Rumplestiltskin’s cage. He bowed to her. She resisted the shiver of _no magic_ that emitted from the bars. It was necessary, both to keep him inside and to keep Zelena and her prying eyes _out_.

“My, my, the Guardian of Sherwood Forest. So many esteemed visitors these days.” He giggled.

“Shut up and listen, because I have a deal for you that you _really_ want to take.”

His smile was sharp enough to cut glass.

* * *

 _Love is not always romantic, my dear husband_.

Zelena strode through the corridors of the castle, unsurprised to find Snow White behind a protection spell too powerful for her to break. She smiled at her, so insignificant in the greater scheme of things – her _child_ was the Savior, not her. She should be green with envy, red with hatred, but no. She was too _pure_.

Pure enough to be the _mother_ of her truest enemy, and the babe ripped away so soon after she was born. Poor, miserable wretch. She would be so unsatisfied simply _teaching_ children. Regina would weep for her, even if she still resented her – and she did, which was the easiest thing in the world to see.

She’d sacrificed her personal happiness for nothing. It thrilled through Zelena, and her skin was pale and beautiful. She _did not_ envy her ungrateful bitch of a little sister, not when soon, she would control everything in her life. Simply threaten an unsuspecting, _human_ Tinker Bell, and she would wilt.

Of course, Zelena had also created a set of memories fitting for their situation. Two sets of memories _might_ make her go mad, but they were similar enough. And if she did go mad, Zelena would have all the more fun watching her suffer.

There was no husband, no beautiful children, in this creation.

There was no Robin Hood _there_ to save her.

* * *

Belle held Rumplestiltskin’s hand in her own, the leathery feel of it no longer so strange, for all that she’d once wished for an ordinary man to love. He had prepared for all of this, she understood, except for her part in it. And maybe that would be enough to help him truly heal, for all that he would be the Dark One even with her love.

“I wish I were in there with you,” she admitted, thumbing the cap of the potion that had tasted like earth and fire – in other words, disgusting. He smiled at her, showing no teeth, and she thought about his skin that hid the man underneath it. It shone like the gold he made, and it was less like leather – more like scales, lizard’s scales that had pressed against her skin and left marks she never regretted.

“I have wished for very many things, and yet none of them seem to come true,” he sighed. “You _will_ be careful.”

She remembered his hands trembling against her skin, _you’re alive_ on his lips before she’d laughed and kissed him thoroughly, no regret in her when he hadn’t changed a bit. Learning about the Dark One had been an adventure in and of itself. She couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he’d become a man again. That darkness with _nowhere_ to go except to all the light in the Enchanted Forest… it was horrid, thinking about it.

“I _have_ been careful,” she reminded him. “Though I don’t think it’s a good idea, and they’ll be after both of our hides, especially considering – well, _everything_.”

He kissed the back of her hand, a gentleman through and through, and smiled again.

“Only one path lies before us, my dearest Belle. Only innocence can prevent it from spoiling. That’s the price.”

 _All magic comes with a price._ Belle remembered _being_ the price, once upon a time, and prayed that this time, it would work. Those deadly blue eyes in a child’s face, accepting the map with less grace than irritation (so much like her mother), would remain with her for close to thirty years.

* * *

“Oh, this is very, very bad,” Tinker Bell said, shoving more soldiers out of existence with her hands – well, more specifically, her claws, which were nearly a foot in length and sharp as the best swords. Regina, sitting with the shepherd prince who was currently bleeding _to death_ , agreed.

The baby was safe, or as safe as she _could_ be. Regina had felt her power, and even in a land without magic… well, things would be _different_ around her. There was more than light in that child, and it could all go wrong so easily. The boy had been sent through, and he’d help, but Regina had felt the surge of power in her arms, and Tinker Bell’s eyes had gone wide as saucers before they ran to the cupboard.

“It’ll be okay, Tink. It’ll all be okay.” She smiled down at Charming, who was healing, at least as much as he could from what had been a mortal wound. “Your daughter’s safe.”

“Well, damn, doesn’t that just _ruin_ my day,” Zelena said, practically prancing into the room, no green on her skin. Regina shook her head at a sneering Tinker Bell, who might try something, because like it or not, Sherwood wouldn’t protect her like it would Marian and Robin and the children, even, thank the gods, Amethyst. Her teeth slowly went back to near-human. “Hey, little sis. Did you miss me?”

Regina considered this, and a bottle she’d given Belle while protected from prying eyes. Her heart ached for everything that could have been, but now, after all of it, there was nothing to be done.

“On the whole, no, actually. But I _do_ miss what you could have been. You’re beautiful, you know. You always have been, even when you were green.” She was telling the truth. It was the best way to lie. “Why do you hate _me_ , Zelena? Why can’t you see that Cora abandoned both of us to _her_ ambition?” Time, she had to buy time, and mentioning Cora made her heart hurt even more, but dammit, it would make Zelena _enraged_.

A snarling upper lip was the only outward sign, but even with her magic diminished she could shove Regina against a wall. She couldn’t choke her, or _ever_ take her heart, but she had enough power for this.

And she was smiling. Good.

“You always were a spoiled little brat. You expected everything to fall in your lap, and it did. And now I’m taking it all away. _I’m_ the one who was worthy. And you’ll never be able to forget that, will you? Got your message, by the way.”

“I figured,” Regina said. There was smoke outside the window, swirling with the spell like the tornado that had pulled her sister to Oz. Zelena couldn’t change anything in the curse now. “Did you hear the part where I _actually_ _said_ I was going to take the potion?”

She shoved out of the dark spell, like she had so, so long ago, and she landed on the floor in a crouch. Zelena staggered, rage in her eyes.

“You—”

“You’re not the only one who knows how to make a deal, _sis_. But don’t worry: _he_ would have remembered anyway. He’s the Dark One, and this is _his_ curse. You should have known better than that. After all, you’re _worthy_.”

Zelena’s hands clawed, but they were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, and everything went black.


	2. Chapter One

Regina looked through the tavern door, heart beating in her throat.

“Wait,” she said, and Tinker Bell turned back to her. She opened her mouth and couldn’t speak. _What if all I have_ is _rage what if I’m nothing more than what Rumplestiltskin thinks I am I killed my own mother I hated her so much how can I go on with him why are you helping me what would Daniel_ – and she swallowed. The bag of coins in her hastily sewn pockets jingled. They were mostly coppers and silver pieces, one gold, saved as well as stolen.

“What is it? He’s your _true love_. What are you waiting for?”

Every doubt in her heart pounding through her body, Regina swallowed.

“I didn’t dress for a tavern, really. I mean, I’m in my nightgown, and it only has one pocket. I don’t know a spell to make clothing.” Especially not the kind that normal people wore. She was more used to her jodhpurs and breeches and shirts than the heavy skirts that women usually wore anyway.

Tinker Bell hummed, then looked her up and down with a beaming smile.

“Well why didn’t you just _say_ so? That’s easy. There.” She nodded, and Regina felt the light magic doing its work.

She was wearing riding clothes. She knew they were _her_ riding clothes, sans coat, because of the way the leather moved with her body, but they looked less like something a royal would wear, mismatched and more –

More like someone who was always on horseback. Someone who was always _free_. She checked, and the bag of coins was still safe.

She thought about Rocinante, and how this magic had felt, summoning him and shushing him when he appeared.

Tinker Bell moved, but Regina held up a hand.

“Let me try?”

If dark magic was about hate and joy, then maybe light magic was about love and fear, and _doing_ something about it. She held her hands up and felt something strange in her, a well of magic that was easier to find than anything Rumplestiltskin had shown her. She knew without looking that this gear looked old but well cared-for, that the packs had brushes and supplies in them for both of them.

Tinker Bell’s eyes were wide. Regina smirked.

“This tavern is an inn as well. I’ll have to make arrangements for him, but then… Daniel would want this?” The ring was in the bag with the coins, protected like he hadn’t been.

It slipped out. Her heart hurt just thinking about it, but Tink hugged her, nodding against her shoulder.

“He was your first true love. He would want you to be _happy_. So be _happy_ , Regina.” And Regina blinked tears away before waving goodbye to Tink.

After arranging for Rocinante’s stable and brushing him to calm him down again, she walked up to the door, tying her hair back like she always had. It was like she could breathe again after nearly drowning.

She opened the door and walked through. The air was dusted with smoke and dirt, but it was clean and open, lanterns on the walls making it warm. The tables didn’t shine, but they weren’t sticky either.

The barkeep nodded at her, and Regina figured a little liquid courage couldn’t _hurt_ anything. She slipped a copper over to him and accepted the ale, which tasted a bit like apples and some spice she couldn’t identify. Her supposed true love was laughing, arms spread wide, and Regina looked at the tattoo again. She knew the house it belonged to, and that its kingdom had been having political and financial troubles since the former queen died. There had been bandits on her – on _the_ kingdom’s borders.

Half of her tankard was gone, and she took a few steps forward before everything in the tavern _stopped_.

“Rumplestiltskin,” she said, not turning to face him. She should have expected him. She felt the light, from her boots up to her temples, and her palms glowed with it, even the fingers holding her drink. She smiled at that and set her drink on the bar. “I’m not going to need your lessons anymore. Thank you.”

She caught his hand when he appeared in front of her, and he flinched back. There was a mark on his wrist for just a moment, human skin shining through the thick flesh that belonged to the Dark One, and his flat eyes narrowed before he smiled at her.

“Learned some new tricks, did you, dearie? Interesting,” he giggled. He was behind her now, muttering to himself. “The future remains. Just the details, the little things, the person, the witch, the love, ah, the love, but – ooh, that’s _interesting_.”

Again he stood in front of her, with his glittering skin. He grinned, bowing to her like a gentleman. He’d never been anything of the sort, but what did that matter when he was the Dark One?

Her heart beat fast, and she was fully aware that she was acting on instinct alone with this magic; he’d kill her faster than she could ever put up a protection spell.

“Oh, don’t fret, dearie. You and your thief are quite safe from me. Your magic wouldn’t work for what I have in mind, but do remember, you still owe me a favor. Now, you ought to go meet your true love. I’ll see you soon.”

Her tankard was in her hand, and a large man knocked into her, spilling it on the floor.

“Watch where you’re going, wench,” he said, and Regina’s free fist clenched, ready to summon a fireball. Then she felt the absence of her purse, and she rolled her eyes, plucking it from his hand when he turned to put it in his pocket. It was almost like dancing, except it was easier and she didn’t have to wear heels.

“I wouldn’t do that again. You’re not very good at it.” She smiled, putting the simplest of protection spells on her purse before stowing it away.

There was a burst of heartfelt laughter behind her, and Regina turned to see a man her age watching the display, grinning at her. His tattoo was half-visible, and Regina smirked at him while the man grumbled and retreated. She liked his smile, with his clean teeth and full-body turn into it. She’d never seen a smile like that.

“You have to give Little John _some_ credit, my lady. He _nearly_ got away with the coin.” The man – Little John, which had probably been an insult at one point – sat at the table and pushed coppers at the man. “Would you care to join us, seeing as you’ve lost your drink, if not your money?”

So her true love _was_ a thief. At least he was a smart one, if he’d bet that she’d get her purse back.

“Well, since you _do_ owe me one, I think I will,” she said, and he made room for her beside him on the bench. “Though I would like to know your name before you try to steal from me again.”

He pressed his hand to his heart, a mocking gesture.

“What, and end my life as a toad? I would never steal from you, my lady. I’m Robin of Loxley. And yourself?”

She let him kiss her hand, something thrilling through her, and sat next to him.

“First of all, I’m not _that_ type of witch. And I’m Regina of well, wherever my horse can take me for the day, I guess.” She took the tankard that was clearly his and took a drink. His eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment. “Clearly I was overcharged. Your drink is quite a bit better than mine was.”

“Everything tastes better when you steal it, my lady.” He was smirking, blue eyes fixed on hers. If anyone else had stared at her like that, she would have run away. With him, though, it made her grin back.

She wasn’t scared anymore. He was just a person, even if he was her second true love. He wasn’t anything like Daniel, and part of her would always feel hollow with that absence, but – _he would want you to be_ happy, Tink had said. Regina knew it was true, and soon she was engrossed in a story that one of Robin’s friends was telling, letting him rest his hand on her knee.

She was laughing with him, and when his eyes met hers, her heart thudded in her chest.

It wasn’t love, not yet, but it could be, and when she checked Rocinante’s stall, reassuring him for the night, Robin followed her to the stables.

“Are you leaving already? We were just about to explain how Little John shot himself in the foot. It’s our best story.” He approached Rocinante, whistling at him and letting the horse come to him. “He’s a magnificent creature. Where in the world did you get him?”

She smiled, a little drunk, maybe, but not stupid.

“Have you ever bet against a witch? To be fair, I hadn’t been trained, but they say that even untrained witches are luckier than other people.” And neither of those were lies. She walked out of the stables, too many reminders of the past back there for her to be comfortable. Looking over her shoulder at Robin, she saw that he’d followed her and was almost close enough to touch.

There was an expanse of brick between the barn and the windows. She stopped there in the darkness, turned to face him. She could see his face but couldn’t read it. There was no embarrassment in his eyes like there had been with Leopold, who couldn’t even – well. There was no fear like what had been in Daniel’s eyes the first day she kissed him. Regina couldn’t read his expression, except that he seemed hungry.

“It must have been a sight,” he said, and he brushed flyaway hairs back away from her cheek. His hand lingered there, thumb brushing her jaw.

They met in the middle. She remembered that later, that she’d leaned forward and kissed him while his fingers tangled in her hair and pulled her in, his other hand coming to rest on her waist. Her hand was on his cheek, the other tangling with his and resting against the bricks. He was warm, but the heat flashing through her had nothing to do with that. She didn’t know how long they stood there, pulling away to breathe but otherwise acting like if they stopped, the world was going to end. It wasn’t just her. Robin held her close and chased after her lips when she pulled away to breathe. His grip was tight and just this side of inappropriate, which was what finally made Regina slow down.

She put her head against his shoulder, and he kissed her hair and her cheek. She smiled against his neck before pulling herself up and letting him have one more lingering kiss.

When they separated, he breathed like he’d just run for miles. Her heart was racing, and it took everything she had to remain calm.

“Come with me. Us. Tomorrow, I mean. We’re leaving at dawn. Come with us.” He was blushing.

“I’m not going to bed with you,” she said, and he shook his head.

“Of course not, no, that’s not—” He had to stop, since she had a finger against his mouth.

“But I _am_ coming with you, Robin. I have to arrange for a room now, though.”

He seemed to realize that he was still holding on to her all at once and separated himself abruptly. They both smoothed down their clothes, and Regina had to redo her hair.

There were no rooms available. Regina balked at the idea of sleeping in the stable, but she was prepared to do so, until Robin offered to sleep on the floor of his. The barkeep shrugged, and Regina insisted on paying Robin half the fare.

“If your friends start clapping, I might actually turn them into things that are _worse_ than toads, by the way,” she said. “I’ll keep the door cracked so you can get in later.”

She had a letter to write.

And rewrite.

And set on fire.

But she finally had something approaching acceptable by the time Robin walked into the cramped room, nodding at her and dropping into the nest of quilts she’d made for him on the floor. She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but grin at him.

He was fast asleep when Tink appeared in the room, and Regina had to shush her from squealing. She couldn’t stop her from _hugging her_ , but that was fine.

“Can you do one more thing for me?” she asked, indicating the letter, and to whom it was addressed. Tink nodded, sober for the first time since Regina met her, and flew out of the room with the letter for Leopold.

* * *

_Dear Leopold,_

_From the time I was very young, my mother insisted that I would be Queen. She would do whatever she thought was necessary to achieve that goal. I believe, but I’m not sure, that she killed your first wife, or had a hand in her death. I know that she was the reason Snow White’s horse panicked the day that I saved her._

_I doubt that you remember much more than the panic and relief of those events. I never told you about my life from before we met, so part of this is my responsibility. I couldn’t tell you that I had already been engaged to a man that I loved, because I knew that my mother would kill him if she knew. I should have waited and told you in private. I believe that you truly do want everyone in the kingdom to be happy._

_Unfortunately, I didn’t do this. Instead, I planned to run away in secret with my fiancé, Daniel. Snow White found us, and I explained to her that he was my true love, and that I couldn’t be Queen. She was happy for us, but she didn’t realize what Cora would do to anyone who got in her way._

_After Cora manipulated her into telling her about Daniel and me, Cora killed Daniel in front of me. She was a witch, and a very powerful one at that, skilled in the darkest magic. She could have pulled my heart out of my chest and forced me to marry you._

_I know that you don’t love me. After learning about what Cora did, maybe you’ll hate me. I don’t love you either, and we never did consummate the marriage, so I legally renounce all claim I have to your hand and the titles that gives me. I don’t hate you, or Snow, though I was angry at both of you for a long time. I blame Cora for what she did._

_I’m leaving. I’ll have been long gone by the time that you read this letter. I haven’t taken anything that belongs to the crown, only what I’ve saved from my own accounts. I don’t want any titles, a throne, or power. I’m following my heart, and it’s always wanted to be free. Please don’t try to find me. If I could have one final request, I would ask that you tell only my father that I’m still alive and say that I died – in a riding accident, and that the casket has to remain closed because of the injuries – to everyone else, unless Snow White asks you what really happened. I didn’t want to make her unhappy, so I told her that Daniel ran away on his own instead of the truth. I think she should know, but I don’t think that I can tell her myself._

_A friend told me that Daniel would have wanted me to be happy. I believe that Queen Eva would have wanted you to be happy as well._

_ I _ _hope that you will be happy._

_Sincerely,_

_Regina_

Snow White’s hands were shaking, but she read the letter through to its conclusion. Her father was pacing what had once been Regina’s rooms, face set in a frown of both concentration and unhappiness. When she was little, she would have pulled him into a chair and played games with him while his mind worked out what was really wrong. Even when she’d been the worst brat in the world, she would have done that for him.

Instead she was crying, because she’d gotten someone killed. She should have known that Regina would lie so that a child wouldn’t have nightmares. She had been a good woman, and Snow hoped with all her heart that she had found her happiness, because she deserved it.

“Will anyone even _believe_ that she could be thrown from a horse?” her father muttered. He looked at her, and his frown softened into kindness. “Oh, Snow, it’s alright. That – what happened, with Regina’s fiancé, it wasn’t your fault. You were only a child. Cora – if she’s the same Cora I knew once – is devious and cruel. Or she was, at least. I have no idea if she’s even alive or not.” He shook his head. “She held a grudge for _decades_ , for something that was her own doing.”

“And if I hadn’t told her about Daniel and Regina, they’d be together,” Snow said. Her father shook his head.

“I honestly doubt _that_ very much. But… put away those thoughts, Snow. Everything will be alright.”

He was wrong.

* * *

Three weeks, a stolen and returned horse, and a nasty twisted ankle later, Tink showed up in the camp. Regina stood up from where she was stooped over the fire, taking in her face, how it crumpled into tears the minute she saw Regina. She was wearing her normal clothes, but they were torn, and there was blood on her arms and legs from walking through the woods.

She was in Regina’s arms before anyone could pull out their bows. She sobbed into Regina’s shoulder, and the first thing Regina thought was that she was _cold_.

Which was a stupid thought. Of course she was cold; she was wearing clothing inappropriate for _town_ , much less for travel through the forest to their little camp. But she was cold in a way that had nothing to do with body warmth, and Regina’s eyes went wide when she realized what was wrong.

“Your wings,” she said, and Tink’s cries grew harder, to the point that they had to sit down.

It wasn’t just her wings. The warmth inside her, her _magic_ , was gone. It was like a light had been extinguished in her, like something had been taken from her.

“Crying is _stupid_ ,” she said, tears still running down her face, “and it’s not the only thing that’s stupid, it’s this whole world, it’s _flat_ , no more colors, no more seeing. How do you stand being like this all the time?”

Regina stroked Tink’s arm with a warm, wet cloth she’d summoned. The damage was worse than what Regina knew how to heal, but the worst gashes were scarring already, on their way to healing into thin scars.

“I don’t know,” she said, completely honestly. “I… suppose it must be harder to miss something that you didn’t have in the first place. Tink, what happened? You weren’t like this the last time we saw each other.” She dipped the cloth in the water, scrubbing dirt and blood out of it with more violence than she thought was probably necessary.

She and Robin were having what Little John called a ‘lovers’ spat’ over the stolen horse. He insisted that he’d changed, somehow, but he’d still _stolen a horse_. That was something that could get you executed, and besides, could get other people killed.

“Blue doesn’t believe in me anymore,” Tink said, which made about as much sense as the missing wings. Her expression must have shown her confusion, because Tink continued, “If Blue doesn’t believe in you, you lose your wings. I’m not a fairy anymore. I’m just – _this_.”

Regina’s heart dropped into her stomach, but she didn’t let that show, starting on Tink’s other arm.

“Because of me?” she asked, low enough that no one else would hear them.

“No!” Tink said. For the first time since Regina had met her, she actually looked _angry_. “No, it was because I had to steal the pixie dust, even after I explained that _you_ were _worth it_. Fairies are supposed to help people who need them, and Blue didn’t want to help _you_.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I was never a good fairy – I was just, well, the ordinary sort, middling – but then I saw you, and I thought I could help you, that Blue would understand. But she didn’t, and now I’m not a fairy anymore. She stopped believing in me.”

Regina recognized the hurt in her voice. It was the same hurt that _she’d_ had, when her mother forced her to be something that she wasn’t. She took Tink’s hands in hers and squeezed, looking her right in the eye.

“ _I_ believe in you, Tinker Bell. You saved me. I don’t care what Blue thinks; that makes you _more_ than a fairy.”

Tink gave her a watery smile, then nodded, sober again.

“I’m human now, though. And I’m not very good at it either. I don’t know how to do the things normal people do, like start a fire, or cook, or patch up cuts. How can I _help_ now?”

Regina bit her lips.

“Well, you could help me with magic. I’m not fully trained, especially not in _light magic_ , and even if you aren’t a fairy now, you know more about it than I do. And I could teach you how to do the things that you don’t know how to do, if you wanted me to.”

The smile that lit up Tinker Bell was almost like magic itself.

Robin was carving something when Regina approached him later that day. She made sure he could hear her, and that he had time to leave before she reached him. He didn’t move, and she sighed with relief. At least he hadn’t hated her because she was angry with him for being an idiot. She didn’t know if she could stand that, especially with what she had to tell him now, since Tinker Bell was going to be a permanent addition to their travelling band of thieves.

She sat on the log beside him, something she hadn’t done since she’d been a very young child, before now.

Before him.

“I’m sorry for being so angry,” she said, looking into the forest around them. It was just on the edge of farmland and emptiness for miles, except for a town called Nottingham that was their intended destination. It bordered Sherwood Forest, which was, legend said, haunted by spirits that hated humans. “I wasn’t being fair to you, especially considering what I’ve been hiding from you, which is – well, worse than being a horse-stealer.”

“I assumed, considering you were running away from something when we met.” Robin smirked but kept carving what looked like a circle now, but would probably be something beautiful later. “I know what _that_ looks like. You don’t have to tell me, you know. Your past is your own.”

Except that it wasn’t.

“I do, actually.” She forced herself to breathe. Robin set down both knife and carving, taking her hand. Their fingers laced together automatically. “Okay, I’m saying this first so you don’t stomp away from me: I had every right to do what I did, and to do what I’m doing now. But – I was married. The marriage was against my will, and my husband never managed to – well, he and I never consummated the marriage, so when I left, I divorced him. Officially. And I only took what I’d brought with me. Tinker Bell – she’s a fairy, but apparently fairies have politics too and now she doesn’t have wings – brought me to you.”

Robin shook his head, brow furrowed.

“That doesn’t sound like anything you should be ashamed of, Regina.”

She smiled, but she knew it didn’t fool him.

“It wouldn’t be, except for the fact that the man I divorced was King Leopold. And that before I divorced him, I was worse than the type of witch who turns people into frogs. I did things that I – I can’t even think about them, Robin, they’re so horrible, and I can’t be forgiven for them, either. I’m the worst sort of person. I made excuses, and I was so angry, and then Tink saved me without even thinking about it.”

She was crying.

She hadn’t cried in a long time, not these types of tears. Not since Daniel died, and she needed to tell Robin about that too, but the words wouldn’t come. It hurt to even think about Daniel at the same time she thought about Robin, and saying his name out loud would be impossible.

There were arms around her shoulders. She didn’t deserve them, didn’t deserve _him_ , but he was shushing her, holding her and telling her things she’d never thought she’d hear again. That he forgave her. That he loved her. That they were together, and nothing could hurt them.

She almost believed him.


	3. Chapter Two

Regina Mills sighed as she entered Gold’s pawn shop. Her lips pursed at the creepy-as-hell dolls that had been there, well, as long as she could _remember_ , and she smiled at the unicorn mobile that Mary Margaret sometimes stared at with soft, sad eyes. Her eyes glanced past the rest of the trinkets in the store, including Lacy Bellefontaine, up to the man himself.

“What is it this time?” she asked. “Did my half-sister try to take one of your contracts again? Is your Spring-Autumn relationship producing offspring – actually, don’t tell me if it’s that one.” She curled her lip, and Lacy just smiled at her. Gold’s mouth quirked in a smirk. “I _do_ have things to do, you know. My day job isn’t actually acting as your PR person.”

She and Adam Gold had been _very_ _reluctant_ business partners for – well, for as long as Regina could remember. If they hadn’t worked together, Leanna Walsh, her half-sister and Storybrooke’s longtime mayor, would own all of the town by now instead of just half of it. When he’d “rehabilitated” Lacy in one of his bids for more control, she’d nearly left it all behind. But as weird and underdressed as the girl sometimes was, she wasn’t actually as bad as the stories told about her suggested. She’d reopened the library, even though they hadn’t managed to fix whatever the hell was wrong with the clock tower yet.

Regina still didn’t like her. Mostly because whenever she “accidentally” showed up during the nights Regina spent with Mary Margaret and Amelia, she ended up crushing one of Regina’s plants because she was a klutz when she was drunk. She also insisted on calling them, “girls’ nights,” which was just unacceptable. Regina wasn’t a _child_.

There was a shrieking wail, and Regina’s eyes went wide.

“ _What_ the _hell_? I was joking about the baby thing,” she said, while Gold pulled a baby carrier up onto the counter. Inside was the siren wailing for attention, and Regina looked at both of them before heading over to the carrier and picking up the little thing, shushing the baby and glaring at both of them. “Why do you have a _baby_ in a _pawn shop_?” She checked him – if the blue hat was correct – for a wet diaper and found none, smiling down at his red face. “Hey, hey, the idiots aren’t going to do anything bad to you, promise.”

She rocked him, tucked into the crook of her arm, and he went quiet before finally slipping into sleep.

“He’s not ours,” Lacy said. She looked to Gold, nodding at him. The two of them seemed to share a language, despite the fact that he was old enough to be her – okay, _teenaged,_ but still – father.

Regina, on the whole, thought they were sickening. It was the only thing that she knew she and Leanna agreed on, even though they never talked about that.

Or, well, _ever_.

“He’s yours. Or he could be, if you signed these papers.” Gold nudged paperwork her way, and Regina stared at him, eyes bugging out. “There is nothing wrong with him, biologically – of that I am certain – and I know that you’ve wanted children for a very long time. You did ask if I could provide you with one at one time, if I recall correctly.”

Regina stared at him some more. Then she stared at Lacy. Then she stared at the baby, who had snuggled himself into her arms like he belonged there. She adjusted her grip, aware of her jacket, how it must feel rough on infant skin – almost _newborn_ , he was so little. She shook her head, looking up at them.

“I – you can’t just _give_ someone a baby,” she said. “There are laws, and I’d have to apply for custody, and the birth parents might show up one day, and I live in the middle of the woods for god’s sakes!” This was all a whisper, of course, but she could feel herself ramping up. “What in the world makes me qualified to be a mother?”

Of course she wanted children. She’d wanted them with Daniel, before the accident, and she’d wanted a family for a long time before that. But she’d understood that that life wasn’t for her, that she wasn’t – that a turkey baster and a timer and pregnancy wouldn’t be _enough_. She wanted a _family_. The one moment of weakness, asking Gold if he _could_ somehow get her a baby, had been just that: a moment of weakness.

The baby in her arms made a noise, and she moved with instincts that she hadn’t known she had, tucking him closer to her chest.

“It’s a closed adoption, the paperwork’s right there, Amelia Thatcher lives right next to you and you have Mary Margaret Blanchard over every other day, and me on some weekends, _and_ you already love him,” Lacy said. She smiled, softer than her clothes and her normal attitude could account for.

Regina blinked at her.

“You are _never_ babysitting,” she said.

Later, when Mia joined her at Granny’s and stared at her, she sighed.

“I’ll explain it all later, but for now, meet Henry Robin Mills. Congratulations, you’re a godmother.”

Mia snorted a laugh, earrings tinkling like tiny wind chimes, and shook her head.

“You have a slightly unhealthy obsession with Robin Hood, you do realize that?” But she didn’t mention that Regina _hadn’t_ named her son after Daniel, and that was enough. She leaned over the table, grinning down at Henry. “Hello, my little future socialist do-gooder. I’m Auntie Amelia, but _you_ can call me Mia.” Somehow she had Henry in her arms, and she was cooing at him while he blinked up at her in what Regina hoped was suspicion. It was a very healthy habit, she thought, considering who Mia was.

“And _you_ have a slightly unhealthy obsession with sparkles and a blood-feud with the Mother Superior, which is why there isn’t going to be a christening.”

“The Church has a long and proud tradition of selling alcohol to the masses. I have theological _and_ historical sources to back me up on this. And it’s not like the _fact_ that I’m a lesbian makes me any less devoted.” Mia shrugged, bouncing Henry lightly. “Besides, I’d much rather actually _do_ something for people instead of acting holier-than-thou all the time and selling candles _once a year_.”

“A lesbian ex-nun is my son’s godmother,” Regina said, her voice deadpan. “And I can see her plotting to teach him how to make mead and argue about civil liberties _and_ religion in two languages as I speak.”

Mia flashed her a grin that was _almost_ wicked.

Mary Margaret insisted on throwing a baby shower, despite the fact that Regina had bought or ordered practically everything she’d need for a baby, including enough diapers to fill the spare room where she stored dried herbs (she’d vaguely contemplated cloth diapers, but then decided that she had neither the time nor the inclination to deal with _that_ sort of mess). But Mary Margaret brought her books, bedtime stories and practical guides on how to raise a baby, including one on adoption and why her baby would always be special.

Regina got a little misty eyed when she also presented Henry with a tiny, silky horse, which was only the first of the toys that would fill the room that she’d mostly ignored up to this point. He mostly ignored it when it was presented to him, but then again, he was only a few weeks old.

Leanna didn’t have anything to say about him, but she sneered whenever Regina came across her in the store with Henry bundled against her chest.

“I took care of that,” Gold said while they were going over monthly reports – mostly arguing about fixed tax percentages, like always, but also dealing with other things. They were things that the Mayor’s office was _supposed_ to handle, like repairing the toll bridge where Regina had found a _man in a coma_ , or dealing with the old mining tunnels. Leanna wanted to leave them be, but Gold was persistent, and Regina, like it or not, was a card Gold could play when it came to her half-sister.

So long as she knew he was playing, she was alright with that.

Especially when it came to Henry.

“Thank you,” she said. He smiled, just a bit.

“Think of it as a belated baby shower gift. Besides, Belle insisted.”

Regina rolled her eyes. She’d never understood Gold and Lacy’s pet names for each other – especially _Rumple_ , which didn’t describe Gold _at all_. But she called Henry her little prince of thieves, so maybe whatever it was simply happened to be something _they_ shared.

Raising Henry was – well, Regina had never been more exhausted, terrified, and _happy_ all at the same time. He was constantly changing in a town where seeing a new car drive down the _street_ was an Event.

Mia took it upon herself to teach him how to ride a bike, and everyone he knew had to sign the resulting cast on his arm. Regina read to him every night, something she’d wanted when she was a child and still convinced that she could make Cora love her if she were just _enough_ , and soon they were past _Goodnight Moon_ and _The Hungry Caterpillar_ , utterly refusing _The Velveteen Rabbit_ and _The Rainbow Fish_ because they disturbed her, and it was like lightning in her chest, watching him grow up.

She tried, once, to get Leanna to open up, if only so that Henry could know her – the good parts, ones that Regina remembered whenever she truly smiled, usually at something her husband, Simon Walsh, did.

“I _know_ that what Cora did makes me seem luckier, is the thing,” she said, practicing the non-aggressive tone Dr. Hopper had been helping her with, “But she hurt us both, especially in keeping us apart. We should have grown up together. I wish that we had.”

Leanna had laughed in her face when she gave her Hopper’s edited version.

“Oh, if you only knew,” she’d said, shaking her head. “I don’t care about you, and you don’t care about me. The only reason you know I _exist_ is because _you_ almost died, and our mother _summoned_ _me_ to your bedside. And then she chose you _again_ , even though she _knew_ what my father was.”

Regina hadn’t tried to take her hands. She knew better.

“She chose _herself_.” Regina had shaken her head. “Maybe one day you’ll be able to see that.”

It was still hard for _Regina_ to see that, and she’d been seeing Dr. Hopper since well before Henry had come into her life. Admitting that she’d been abused, horribly, and neglected, by a woman who didn’t give a damn about anyone but herself, was the hardest thing she’d done in her life. Seeing him after she had Henry had made her more convinced than ever to make sure Henry knew that he had every option in life, whatever he chose to make of it.

Which was what finally led to the adoption conversation.

“So, my – my other mother didn’t want me?” Henry asked, everything about him open, but still afraid. Maybe she’d taken too long to tell him, but she couldn’t explain things like this while he was still learning “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” She had a hard enough time with emotions herself, which was why she’d gone to Dr. Hopper beforehand.

He’d told her that if they wanted, he’d see Henry and her together a few times, if it went badly. That was pretty much the most reassuring thing she’d ever heard, because she was _sure_ that it would go wrong.

“I’ve never lied to you, and I won’t now,” Regina said. Maybe it was cold of her, but her son deserved the truth. “I don’t know why your birth mother put you up for adoption. I do know that she made sure to find the best adoption agency in the United States, because _I_ looked them up and found out what their reputation for successful adoptions is. So I think that, whatever else, your birth mother wanted you to have the best chance at a good life. I’m grateful that that life is with me, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world because _I love you_ and I want you.”

He still looked sad. She opened her mouth, trying to find the words to explain everything.

“Henry, the adoption… well, it was _completely_ closed. I don’t know her name, or if she was a teenager when you were born, or if she wasn’t in a position to be a _mom_ because of other things. But I know more than most that legal matters aren’t exactly… well. I know that getting records is easier than you’d think. And I know that when you’re eighteen you’ll have the right to all of your medical records, and – I’ll help you look for her, if you want me to. Right now it would be beyond illegal for us to try to find anything, and—”

“And you don’t want me to get hurt. I know, Mom.” His face was bright and sunny, and she kissed him on the forehead, grinning back.

She didn’t think that they _needed_ to go to Dr. Hopper.

And then he started saying that the town was cursed. It stopped being an option, even if Dr. Hopper thought that this was Henry’s way of expressing emotions he didn’t have words for. Regina tried to talk to him about it, even _read_ the damn book, cover to cover, to try to see what he saw.

And maybe it made sense to a ten-year-old. Regina even _liked_ the complexities of the stories, the politics and its treatment of magic, how it reimagined stories that had two-dimensional villains – good and evil – and asked _why_ things had to be that way. Good people did bad things, even evil things, and even evil had its motives.

It was a very adult way of looking at things that maybe should have been looked at like a child.

Especially the heart thing. She was going to have _words_ with Mary Margaret about the heart thing.

Even if she _did_ love imagining Leanna as the Wicked Witch of the West.


	4. Chapter Three

Learning light magic, it turned out, was _much_ different from learning dark magic.

“Well, you’re much more inclined toward light magic, for one,” Tink said after a lesson, when Regina was sweating from the exertion and the heat, but not from trying to tap into the magic. She’d asked why it was so different, and now she stared at Tinker Bell, who shrugged. “I don’t know why, but as powerful as you _could_ be with dark magic, you’re like a beacon when you use light magic.”

Regina pondered that. She wondered what it meant, that Rumplestiltskin hadn’t been able to see that, or, if he had, had deliberately ignored her natural inclinations in favor of driving her deeper into her dark power. She could still feel it there, ready to be used. It was rage, and maybe rage was good, sometimes, but she didn’t _need_ it here.

“You can still see that?” she asked, and Tinker Bell frowned, looking away from her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

“No, it’s alright.” Tinker Bell was practical in a way that Regina had never known before meeting her. Her practicality wasn’t touched with ruthlessness, or with duty, like what her mother’s and ex-husband’s had been. It just _was_. “I can see your glow, still. I may not have my wings, but even Blue can’t stop me from being a fairy. Just like you can’t stop being naturally human.” She shrugged. “And you glow like – it’s like the world isn’t still flat. I like that.”

She grinned at Regina, who found herself smiling back.

After telling Robin her story about Tinker Bell and this _Blue_ , Robin had subtly made it clear to their friends that Tinker Bell _was_ a fairy, and that they were to believe in that even though she didn’t have wings. That belief might not change anything – Regina was no stranger to how much _personal_ belief didn’t affect magic – but Tinker Bell didn’t look like she would wilt away anymore. Regina also caught her smiling when they talked about “their fairy” and “their witch.”

“So, what do you think of Nottingham so far?” Regina asked. Her voice was just a little frosty, and Tinker Bell raised an eyebrow at her.

Robin had opened a tavern, and while Tinker Bell was proving to be the best brewer in the Enchanted Forest, it was his business partner that rubbed Regina the wrong way. Marian, the woman who had apparently nearly killed Robin – because he’d stolen her family’s horse! – was a little too friendly for Regina’s tastes.

Not that Robin seemed to notice, which was the best thing that could be said about him, because she was pretty sure between him, the Sheriff, and the _merry men_ , there was going to be a coup in Nottingham.

Not that she necessarily _disapproved_ of the idea. The taxes were _horrifying_ , even taking into account this kingdom’s lack of surplus. The idiot of a prince whored his way through the heart of the kingdom on the land’s own resources, and Regina had, when she was a queen, convinced Leopold to break Snow White’s betrothal to him for that very reason. It hadn’t been out of any love for her, but Regina was glad, in hindsight, to have done so. They hadn’t broken off relations completely (yet), and that was probably what was propping up the government as it was. This _Sheriff_ , though, was taking advantage of his position and of the common people’s lack of knowledge about the laws in their own kingdom. A coup would be a good way to get King George’s attention, to expose the Sheriff’s fraud.

But Regina had met King George. He was a bitter old man, and even if the cause was just, he would kill everyone in the town for that sort of insolence. And Regina would _not_ have any of that.

“I think it’s nice, and that the Sheriff needs a good kick in the arse,” Tink said, and Regina snorted out a laugh. “I like Marian enough not to, though. He’d take it out on her family, since they still live on the farm. And Friar Tuck’s very kind for someone religious.”

Regina had the faint thought that someone was stealing her best friend, but there was a nervous blush on Tinker Bell’s face. She wouldn’t have lasted an hour at court. A few months ago Regina wouldn’t have thought that with any fondness.

“The Friar disapproves of me, I think. I hadn’t realized you were close with Marian, though.”

Tinker Bell’s eyes went wide, and Regina raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. She hadn’t realized that fairies could even feel that way about humans, and she _knew_ that Marian was attracted to men, but she could be like certain nobles whom the courtiers gossiped about who lived in what was called a ‘three-way household’ by the _politer_ factions. Regina didn’t feel one way or another about that. She _was_ worried that Tinker Bell could get hurt.

She cared about more people now than she had in her whole life. It was disconcerting. She had to force her mother’s voice out of her head more often than ever before, because love, she was beginning to learn with this light magic, could be just as much a strength as it could be a weakness.

“She likes to ask about it all. Being a fairy, but not having wings. I like talking to her.” She gnawed on a thumbnail.

“I didn’t say I _disapproved_ , Tink. I was just surprised. _I_ disapprove of the good Friar who keeps insisting that Robin and I _have_ to get married for the health of our souls.” She flushed and fiddled with the necklace Robin had given her. Carved wooden beads hung on a leather strap, centered by what he’d made out of the disk that had been the only witness to her confession. Now it was like a smoothed arrowhead, a relief of a feather standing out as it tapered down to a point.

As far as Regina was concerned it was the only wedding token she needed. It matched the tattoo on her wrist, the one that represented the freedom she’d finally found.

“You should get married, but not for your souls. You love him, he loves you, and you’re not married to anyone _else_. _I_ think you’re just stubborn.” Tink knocked their shoulders together playfully.

“Because _that’s_ news,” Regina said, pushing back. “I don’t exactly have the best memories associated with marriage, Tinker Bell.”

“So make _new ones_. You could even do the asking.”

Regina laughed, but she turned the idea over and over, enough that Robin pressed a kiss to her shoulder in their bed that night.

“What are you thinking about?”

He knew her. She smiled up at him.

“If it would scandalize the people of Nottingham if Tinker Bell officiated our wedding?” It shouldn’t have been a question, and it wasn’t the most graceful of proposals, but he accepted.

It did, in fact, scandalize certain residents of Nottingham. Friar Tuck, surprisingly, was _not_ one of them. Tinker Bell blessed them by the stars and the moon and the sun and earth and rain, and she asked that the gods bless their union, and that, it seemed, was it.

They’d just kissed when the world went still, save for the three of them. Regina’s eyes widened, and she summoned the sword she’d been practicing with (she preferred it to archery). Rumplestiltskin was standing in the middle of the frozen, unaware crowd, clapping and grinning his crocodile smile.

“A lovely service, milady… fairy? Hmm, interesting. More than you seem, but less than you’ll be. I’ve come for that favor you owe me, Regina. Oh, and I suppose I’ll give you a—” He laughed – “wedding present as well.”

Robin stepped forward, but Regina grabbed his arm and shook her head.

“What do you want, Rumplestiltskin?” she asked. “And why?”

He was in front of the two of them in an instant, a vial in his hand.

“Two hairs, plucked from your lovely heads. And since this should be a fair arrangement, I’ll make sure two innocent people – of my choosing, of course – are protected from death.” He wrinkled his nose. “ _Necessary_ arrangements, of course. As for why, well, you’ll know as soon as the hairs are in here.”

“What do you owe him?” Robin murmured.

“He was my first teacher,” she answered. “The Dark One. If we don’t do what he says, he’ll do worse than kill us.”

Robin’s didn’t look betrayed – she’d told him all about what she’d done, even if she hadn’t mentioned that Rumplestiltskin was behind her training. Instead, he was resolved, and pulled a strand of hair from his head. Regina pulled one from her own, and she handed them over to Rumplestiltskin.

The vial glowed with deep magic as soon as the hairs touched the bottom. Regina’s eyes went wide.

“A potion made from true love?” she asked.

“The most powerful magic in all the realms.” Rumplestiltskin tucked it away and bowed to them. “You’re welcome. You’ll understand that later.” He turned as if to go and suddenly remembered something, which was an act, of course. There was a puff of magic, and a dark vial was in his hand. “Your gift.”

“What is it?”

“ _What_ , dearie, is a simple memory restoration potion. Something your dearly departed mother stole from you, once upon a time. You’ll understand _that_ later too.” He smiled. It wasn’t as unpleasant as it could have been. “Ask your more-than-less-than friend if I’m telling the truth, if you don’t believe me.”

She turned to Tinker Bell, who nodded, looking surprised as well at her knowledge. Regina took the potion from him and drank its contents, which were unpleasant, but then—

Then there was a filled slot in her mind that she hadn’t noticed was empty, of a little girl she’d clung to. There was a promise, there, but there was also her mother, and another potion for the girl, who wouldn’t _know_ , who’d _gone_.

_We’ll always be sisters._

“I have a sister?” she asked, and Rumplestiltskin giggled at her. She didn’t know why – maybe because _she’d_ heard the hope in her voice. He had to have, too.

“ _Half_ -sister, technically, but yes. She’s proven herself to be, hmm, harder to train but more willing to do so. It’s a damn shame those shoes got away. Makes the future just as certain, but a bit more disappointing for you.”

The thoughts were still tumbling around in her head when he disappeared.

“I have a sister,” she said, taking Robin’s hand. He squeezed it.

“And the Dark One is training her.”

It sent chills down her spine.

It took Regina time to tell Robin the whole tale of what Rumplestiltskin had had her do – what she had done to her own _mother_. Even if Cora had deserved it, and maybe she had, it had still darkened Regina in a way that could never be undone. And that girl, that poor girl, hadn’t deserved what Regina had done at all.

“She was likely his pawn as well,” were his only words, but he didn’t offer forgiveness, thank all the gods. There was no one who could forgive her for what she’d done.

He _knew her_. He knew that talking about her feelings, even admitting that she loved him, was hard for her. He was quiet too, mostly about his own past, but they didn’t need words, most of the time. His hand on her shoulder calmed her down more than anything Tink said about frustration not helping with magic. Her fingers twining with his looked sweet, but kept him from going too far with the Sheriff, when he had the look in his eyes that said he wanted to kill him.

Words were hard for both of them when it came to intimacy. Flirting was easy, and charming crowds into peace – or violence – was even easier. It was vulnerability that they couldn’t share except with their bodies.

His hand lingered on her stomach for weeks before they were ready to admit that that bout of sickness _hadn’t_ been a simple cold. She only drank tea or water, but wouldn’t say a word about how terrified she was. There was more terror than she’d ever felt when her mother was lecturing her, as weeks passed and no blood showed.

It wasn’t the baby. It was Nottingham, and the Sheriff’s threats, and her own inadequacy that made her violently afraid. It was the increasingly high tension in the air – the imprisonment of people who couldn’t pay taxes on their homes, the beatings the guards gave them.

“How can we raise a child in a place like this?” she finally asked him.

His fingers laced with hers on her bare stomach.

“I do not know,” he said.

And that was when the singing started. Not that night, with Robin there to assuage her fears, but the next morning, when Regina was practicing protection spells while Tinker Bell added magic to the mead that would be excellent come winter. Her head turned, and so did Tink’s, a glow of magic around her that wasn’t exactly like fairies usually had.

Human belief changed her magic, maybe. But Regina was focused on the song.

It came from Sherwood Forest, and before she knew what she was doing, she had walked away from Tinker Bell’s warning tone, feet almost floating over the grass. Tinker Bell followed her, and she took Regina’s hand, warning her that this was powerful, _old_ magic.

“I know,” Regina said. She could feel it under her boots.

There was a clearing behind the darkest trees, and a woman was standing there. She was transparent, a ghost or a projection, and she was beautiful in the same way that the forest itself was beautiful. There was danger in her gaze on the two of them, and her eyes flitted to the light curve of Regina’s stomach. Her voice rang like an echo when she spoke.

“It’s been a very long time since a human heard the forest and did not run. Even longer still since _your_ kind could change.” She had spoken to both of them, to herself and to Tinker Bell. “You asked a question. I have an answer.”

Her hair had been blonde, in life, long and untamed. There were flowers in it.

“Everything comes with a price,” Regina said. She didn’t just mean magic.

The spirit nodded.

“To see is to know, and to know is to decide. To decide is to change. To change is more than many can bear. But you asked a question. You ignored the warnings. You will have an answer.”

And Regina thought maybe this was what Tinker Bell had meant, that the world was _flat_ , when everything crystalized into what-was and what-could be, like a diamond in the light. She could see Sherwood Forest stretching through Nottingham, to the forest on the other side of the village that was itself, even if it was separate. She saw archways of trees that were magic, that were _homes_ , plenty for all – if only they would share it. Take no more than they needed, and bring as little harm as they could to their fellows.

And under that she saw the world as it was. Broken. Shattered in two.

But there was still the possibility, if Regina were to…

“I don’t want to be Queen,” she said, almost choked. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“No queen rules this forest, but there have been guardians. All have failed, in the end, to protect this place for more than a generation.” She saw resentment, girls running away from it all, a forced lineage—

And she pulled herself away, glaring at the spirit.

“I know what traps look like. All I _ever_ wanted was to be free.” Tinker Bell was rigid beside her, either caught in her own vision or unable to speak.

The spirit smiled.

“To have freedom, one often forfeits safety.”

“And even if a cage is _safe_ , it’s still a cage. _Trading_ freedom for safety is walking into a cage and shutting the door _yourself_.” Rage, darkness filled her, but Tink was at her side, and it mingled with love, with light. Even then, she knew she wouldn’t beat this creature of the forest. She was too inexperienced, even after months of tutelage under Tinker Bell and Rumplestiltskin.

She’d never been more sure that she was doing the right thing, though. One wrong move, and she would at least try to take the spirit down with her. She _protected_ what was hers, and if Tink couldn’t move, then she was vulnerable, and maybe she could get out, tell them what happened…

“Thank you,” it – she – said.

And everything filled with color, so much that for a moment, she was overwhelmed with it. But Tinker Bell held her hand – a pixie, the first in countless generations, that was what she was becoming – and the colors faded. The spirit – Sherwood Forest, she realized – dispersed among the trees, which were growing.

“What just happened?” she asked.

Tinker Bell was staring at some of the trees. They seemed different, somehow, flowers blooming with a shine that Regina didn’t understand.

“I think Sherwood Forest just accepted you as her Guardian.” Her face was filled with wonder, as she drew her hands up and the flowers, blossoming, let down pollen – no, _pixie dust_. She filled a small bag with it, eyes shining, and then she burst into tears that were accompanied with laughter. “Look, Regina. Look at it all.”

Regina did, and her cheeks were wet with tear she hadn’t even realized she was capable of.

“We changed,” she whispered, and even though that thought should have made her terrified, she couldn’t help but laugh too.


	5. Chapter Four

“So, I’m in the book, huh?” Emma asked, praying that this kid had a therapist. She’d made _sure_ he was going to a good home, even if she couldn’t be a mother, not when she hadn’t even turned eighteen. A good mother would’ve put this kid in therapy. “What does it say about me?”

“That it’s your twenty-eighth birthday, but I could’ve gotten that from the place I found your name, so I know you won’t believe me,” the kid – Henry, what a weird name – said. “So, what was your life like?” She shot him a look. “You asked me a question. It’s only fair I get to ask one back. And since _I_ told the truth, you have to too.”

“What, are we trading?” she asked. The kid reminded her uncomfortably of Neal, in a way that made her almost smile.

“It’s a three-hour drive. Well, two and a half. I’m going to bother you anyway. Use your superpower again if you have to.”

She didn’t have to. He was _just like_ Neal.

“I was in the foster system, got emancipated at sixteen, met your biological father, got thrown in jail in Phoenix, which is where you were born, became a bail bondsperson, and I’ve sort of wandered around since then.”

She sort of winced at what she was saying, but hey, the kid wanted the truth.

“I was born in jail?” he asked. Which was, well, fair, okay, she got that.

“Your father… wasn’t the greatest guy. But it’s my question now. What – what’s your life like?”

It hurt to ask. But she had to know, and he was right. They had another two-plus hours to go, especially at night. She was pretty sure she wasn’t stepping on any triggers with him, though.

“It’s just me and my mom, but that’s okay. I have a godmother, Amelia, but I call her Mia, and an ‘honorary’ aunt, Mary Margaret, and Belle – well, ‘Lucy’, but her _real_ name’s Belle. My mom doesn’t really like her. We live in the forest, sort of, because Mom owns land. Mia’s an ex-nun and an apiarist, and Mom has an orchard and a garden, but she gets her money from the stock market. She’s really good at that. Mary Margaret’s a teacher, and Belle runs the library. I’m a grade ahead in school, I love reading, and Mia taught me to cheat at poker. Oh, and there’s _Leanna_ , Mom’s half-sister. She hates her, but that’s okay, because Leanna is evil. Why were you in jail?”

“Huh? I told you that one already, kid.”

This time _he_ shot her a look. Which made her uncomfortably certain that she’d contributed at least something to his genes.

She sighed.

“Your birth father stole some pretty expensive watches, and, well, they found me with them because I was an idiot and trusted a conman. It was some sort of sting, and my sentence was pretty lenient, all things considered. Why do you think your mom hates her sister?”

“ _Half_ -sister, and they hate each other. Mom tells me the truth – well, she made Mia tell me about puberty and sex since she’s my godmother, but Mia’s a lesbian, so it was really weird, and she waited until I was older to tell me I was adopted because she’s ‘not good at expressing emotions’. Why weren’t _you_ adopted? You were just a baby when they found you, weren’t you?”

And ouch, the kid didn’t know how to pull his punches. Either that, or the whole ‘complete honesty’ thing with his mom made him immune to social mores. Emma winced, and then she shrugged. The kid wanted the truth.

“I almost was, when I was three. But the couple found out they were pregnant, so I went back into the system. After that, I was what they called a ‘problem child.’ I skipped a couple grades too,” she added, because hey, if the kid got his smarts from her and had a stable childhood, maybe he’d actually, you know, go to college.

If he stopped having issues.

Which was unfair, because she knew that if he had _issues_ , they probably wouldn’t go away, and he’d still manage. He’d just have to find a therapist. Maybe a psychiatrist. She didn’t _think_ the kid had ADHD, but it was possible.

“Have you ever seen a psychologist, like, to talk about everything with?” she asked.

He practically bounced in his seat.

“Yep. Dr. Hopper’s pretty cool. He has a Dalmatian actually named _Pongo_ , and my mom went to him for a long time before I was born, and we went together once after she told me I was adopted and I told her about the curse. Now I see him once a week. He always tells the truth, except he doesn’t believe me about the curse either. What was my dad’s full name?”

“No. You are _not_ looking up that – that _jerk_. He isn’t a good guy.” She shook her head.

“No, that’s not it. I just want to know his name. I promise.”

“ _Lying_ ,” she said.

He was pouting. She could _feel_ the pout, even if she couldn’t see it.

“Okay. I won’t look him up, even if I want to. I promise.” And that was the truth. Emma’s hands were so tense on the steering wheel that she knew they had to be white, even while they turned onto roads that weren’t seething with city lights.

She almost closed her eyes in defeat. Dying wasn’t on her agenda for today, though.

“Neal Cassidy. He might not be going by that name anymore, though. I don’t know his middle name, if he has one.” Her mind backed up to the conversation they’d been having. “Wait, what _exactly_ is this curse you’re talking about?”

He told her about how all of the fairytale characters in The Book (she could _hear the capitalization_ ) were stuck in Storybrooke, Maine, because the _Wicked Witch_ had cursed them using a spell made by _Rumplestiltskin_.

“Timeout,” she said at a red light. “No more back and forth. I don’t think I can handle any more of this. Your mom, who apparently loves you like, in the best way possible, is definitely freaking out, and she’s probably organized _search parties_ to look for you. You’re, like, the happiest kid I’ve ever met, and I cannot tell you how glad I am that you’ve got that. Why would you think you’re cursed? Is it because I – because I gave you up?”

Henry actually _huffed_.

“First of all, I left a note, so my mom shouldn’t be too worried. And _I’m_ not cursed. Everyone else is. If you ask my mom how long she’s lived in Storybrooke, she’ll say ‘ever since I can remember’. If you ask _everyone in town_ that question, it’s the same answer. My mom has photos of me growing up. I’m the only person who’s _aged_ in at least eleven years. They’re frozen in time. It’s part of the curse. I guess I’m not part of it, since I was born here, and you escaped it. If you read The Book it makes sense.”

 _Oh, kid_ , she thought.

“Let’s listen to some music for the rest of the drive.” She put the radio on some pop-station that was annoying as hell, but it was better than thinking about the _Wicked Witch_.


	6. Chapter Five

Zelena watched her sister – her spoiled brat of a sister, who’d never gone hungry, never _would_ go hungry – _run away_. She laughed at that, at the thought of _precious Regina_ managing to live like a commoner, and she laughed at the little fluff of a fairy crying while she made her way to Regina. She stopped laughing, seething instead when Regina held her like they were _family_ , shushing her, comforting _her_.

Even as a commoner, Regina had more than Zelena had _ever had_. She had someone who accepted her, who let her cry about how _bad_ she had been, how _evil_. She had an entire group of people devoted to her, the number only growing when they settled down in some village.

She’d given up everything Zelena had ever wanted, and her magic was only growing. It had changed, turned mercurial silver that seemed to shine, _light magic_. The dark, lurid purple was gone, its afterimage a sheen of pale power that ran through the rest of her magic like they _belonged together_. Light and dark – and it shouldn’t have been that way, it shouldn’t have been possible, not when they were Cora’s children, not when they were dark as sin. Zelena’s only weakness was light magic, yet Regina – Regina used them both, like she had _any right_ to do so.

Her hands clawed, fingers piercing her skin hard enough to draw drops of blood to the surface of her palms.

And something – something _moved_. She turned, lashing out with her magic, but Rumplestiltskin caught it in his hand, giggling, looking around the palace of Oz. He shrugged at the Wizard, still her pet.

“Gather your things, dearie. I’m here to take _you_ —” He smiled wide, “home.”

“Go to hell,” she snapped. “Our… _association_ is over. We have both made that _quite_ clear.”

He giggled again, looking down at her mirror. He flicked his wrist, and there was an image there. It was _her_ , her mother, Cora, signing something and then learning magic. She had been quite beautiful.

“Unfortunately, your _mother_ had the last say on that. Didn’t know she’d already had her firstborn at the time – it would’ve made this _so much simpler_.” He hummed. “She tried to change the deal, of course. She _did_ love you, then. But you were already born, so – well, long story short, your mother sold you to me. And now you’re going to pack your things, come with me – hell, even bring the man if you want – and _learn_. Trust me, this is very much better than the alternative.”

His eyes were not human, Zelena thought. She ought to have noticed that months before, before Dorothy, before Glinda – oh, gods.

If innocence reclaimed was powerful, then this innocence, taken, had been her greatest shield against this _bastard_. Her heart was racing, not with lust – never love, she had _never loved him_ , even if she hated her sister, and she swore she always would – but with fear. Her skin remained as green as it had been since Dorothy landed in Oz, and Zelena hated that she knew what that meant.

She would _not_ let this control her. One day, _she_ would control Rumplestiltskin, and she would make him pay for everything that was about to happen.

“Walsh, pack up the more interesting magical items,” she said, and the man nodded, fear in his eyes reassuring, because he was still afraid of her, even if he feared Rumplestiltskin. She smirked at the bastard. “Unfortunately, the heels wouldn’t fit _you_ even if they’d returned after sending a certain _pest_ back to whatever realm the storm brought it through.”

And then she was in an unfamiliar castle, none of Regina’s sturdy walls _here_. The tapestries were tattering to pieces, and Rumplestiltskin giggled at the old man across from her, who was gaping. She sneered at him, contemplated turning him into a circus animal.

“King Midas, this is Queen Zelena of Oz. She has the ability to give you what you desire.”

Zelena eyed the man. He wasn’t _quite_ so old, but unfortunately, there was also a woman beside him, obviously his wife, and a teenaged girl who looked at Zelena without a trace of fear in her eyes. Rumplestiltskin was grinning like a fiend.

“Walsh, my mirror,” she said, and he – now a monkey – set it on the floor. She looked at this King Midas, who was wary, and looked into the mirror. She saw the deal with Rumplestiltskin and raised an eyebrow. “Really? That seems awfully short-sighted. You’ll starve in a month.”

“My agreement with the Dark One excluded food and drink, Your Majesty.”

But not the touch of his wife or child, she noted, and looked at Rumplestiltskin, who smirked. She looked at the girl, who seemed to understand more than her father what this meant – smart girl. The woman would be dead in a day, but the girl might make a useful ally one day.

Zelena knew no spell to make his wish come true, but she needed none. Walsh offered her the goblet she’d _never_ touched while in Oz, and she took it, feeling the magic within. Yes, this would do; she had watched the Dark One more than she had Regina, watched how he sensed for magic, and this was no ordinary cup. Fashioned to look like a cluster of different berries, it was made completely of gold.

Or so it seemed.

Zelena plucked a grape for him, setting it on the table. It was almost black, the skin so thick – luscious, and the darkest magic she had touched, excepting Rumplestiltskin’s own skin.

“Eating this will give you what you desire, Your Majesty. _Everything_ you touch will turn to gold, save food and drink. Even breathing, living beings.”

Rumplestiltskin scowled at her from behind King Midas’s back. She smiled at him, saccharine.

If a man wanted something, he ought to know what it meant.

“Everything has its costs,” Midas said, turning to his wife, who was shaking her head. “It is necessary, my beloved.”

The daughter let go of her mother when she lunged for the king, who had swallowed the berry with his back turned to her. Zelena watched his shock as his wife turned into a statue in front of him. She shrugged, and the daughter – years later, Zelena would learn that her name was Abigail – simply stared at her.

“I did warn him,” she pointed out, snapping Walsh back to a human form. He gathered her possessions, not looking at any of them. “Nothing in the world is free. Royals of all people should know _that_.”

Rumplestiltskin whisked them away to another castle, this one different. Empty and full of dust, yes, but also filled with treasures that could feed entire villages for _months_ , and that was just the one room.

“Zelena, Your Highness, whatever, the bushel is _gone_ ,” Walsh said, and she turned to Rumplestiltskin.

“Even _you_ didn’t touch the thing unless you had to, if you recall.” He bared his teeth, like some sort of bear, clawing his hands up in mockery. “Too wild, too unstable to trust. Those sorts of magics get… tucked away. It’s best for everyone, really.” He sat on a bench with crystals embedded in the legs, lounging on it and tapping his chin. “I was wrong, earlier. I assumed what you loved most was me, but it isn’t. You are very much like your mother, you know. Your greatest love is _power_.”

“Did the green skin give it away?” Walsh asked. She raised an eyebrow at him, considering turning him back into a pet. He held up his hands in surrender. “The other sisters watched you for so long because the other two weren’t sure about you. Wisdom and courage aren’t as easily convinced as love, apparently. I think they thought _I_ was the evil one.”

“Monkey time,” Zelena said.

“No, let’s hear the man speak. He’s known you the longest, after all.”

Walsh gave Rumplestiltskin a look Zelena couldn’t decipher.

“And I hate her, and she hates me. But I warned you when I gave you the slippers about wanting what you couldn’t have. And I was summarily ignored.”

Zelena turned him back into a flying monkey. He was much more pleasant that way.

“I’d gladly rip out his heart, but it wouldn’t do either of us any good.”

Rumplestiltskin nodded, eyes far away. Inhuman and wrong, but intelligent. Regina had done something, become too _light_ to cast his spell, and what Zelena loved most had no heart, though she rather thought _control_ fit the bill better than power. She wanted to make her own destiny, especially after her wretch of a father had thrown her away.

“Well, I never did like that man anyway,” he said, seemingly to himself. “What you need is a representation of your greatest love. The heart of a king should do, but you’d have to marry him. Would you do that willingly?”

She knew why he asked her this. If she had no choice in the matter, she would lose her power entirely, and she could become like _Regina_.

“I couldn’t marry King Leopold without retching, but I’d marry another king, yes. Not a weak-willed man who’d let his wife run away like _she did_ , or a fool like Midas, though. Do you know any kings who match that description?”

Rumplestiltskin tilted his head to the side, then grinned.

“In fact, I think I do. And he’s just about to go to war with your sister, which should satisfy you very much, I believe.”

It did, as a matter of fact.

King George was older than Midas, and truthfully she didn’t care much for him, but it was a political and magical arrangement, nothing more. Officially, of course, she was simply an advisor on his Council of Lords, but the marriage was legal, and they had managed to do their duty, unlike _Regina_ had.

Her mirror showed them everything in Nottingham and the expansive Sherwood Forest, and she allowed some of the more intelligent Lords to hear what her little sister called an _accident_. The rest, she told them, simply weren’t as sensitive to magic as the others were. It made her husband laugh, which would have made a more faithful queen happy simply for its existence, she supposed. She tasted the edge of anger in it, the sort of anger that _needed_ revenge, and that was what made her lips curl up in pleasure.

“Her little ‘accident’, if it can even be called that at this point, has cut a good portion of the kingdom away,” he said, after she had cut the connection. “Lord Calloway, how goes the historical research on the existence of Sherwood Forest as a sovereign nation? We need precedence, if nothing else, to prove that this is a coup and not simply… _magic_. If we can give the people that, the proper people, Sherwood will fall back into our hands soon enough.”

“Some of it _has_ grown into the neighboring kingdom, but really, in all of those trees, who will be able to tell where the original borders were in the first place?” Zelena asked, and there was a chuckle all around.

Lord Calloway, an old, skinny man who was nearly dead, pulled several notes out of his robes that were nearly as pale as he was. Zelena understood that some of the books in the library were so old that only he and his trained assistants were allowed to touch them, and even then only for moments at a time.

“There are the legends, of course,” he said, sheathes of parchment moved around with precision that bordered on magic. “They speak of spirits in the forest, but not of kingdoms. Where was – ah, here. These are dates in which the kingdom has noted official business with Sherwood as its own entity, and maps from those periods. But Sherwood Forest has been part of your kingdom for over five hundred interrupted years, so the historical record, at least, dictates that this is a coup.” He bowed, handing the sheets of paper to the King. The Prince had failed to show up to the meeting, idiotic boy, but he would do well on a battlefield.

Later, in her own chambers, she watched a heavily pregnant Regina napping, curled around the thief of hers, and she wondered why her skin was still green


	7. Chapter Six

“Well, at least we know your birth mum’s hot, so you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of turning out decent for a man, if you start to look more like her than like a little baby bean,” Mia said, stuck in the back of the _neon yellow Bug (it was so adorable!!!)_ with Henry. She was watching Emma, though, for her reactions, both to the blatant flirting and to how casual she acted about Henry’s relationship with Emma, and Emma’s relationship with his father.

What she’d got so far was not encouraging in the latter area. Any mention of the birth father and Emma went stone cold.

The other side was pretty fun, actually.

“I’m Mia, and who are you, gorgeous?” she’d asked Emma straight out, standing outside _Leanna’s place_ because Regina had actually been that desperate after reading her kid’s note about going to Boston and bringing his birth mother back.

“A one on the Kinsey scale, and Henry’s birth mother, Emma,” had been the quick reply, along with a grin. Mia had snapped her fingers, pretended to be, well, disappointed that her godson’s mother a) used the Kinsey scale and b) was straight, instead of shocked that Henry’s birth mother was _actually named Emma_.

She’d read the bits about her, because Mia was a badass pixie inside Henry’s head, which was adorable and sweet, if a little disturbing. Apparently Tinkerbell ( _Tinker Bell_ , two words, which was just _odd,_ considering everything, but was also disturbing because it was pretty damn close to what her _real name meant_ , and Henry hadn’t known that) was a lot scarier in this version, and Emma was in one of them. Granted, she was a baby, but still, she was there. Cuddled up in a blanket and protected by Regina (well, the Guardian, in the book, but that was _Regina’s_ face), of all people.

“I am never gonna be a two, babe, not even for you. Also, didn’t you say she was an ex- _nun_?” Emma asked. They were both trying to break the tension, at least, which Mia appreciated. Regina was _pissed off_ , especially after having words with her sister that Mia’d had to break apart, which was her duty as best-friend-and-part-time-deputy.

They’d both been verbally assaulting each other, and no one was sure who had gone for the throat first, so Graham had agreed to let it slide. Especially since Mia was considering clawing Leanna’s eyes out of their sockets, and they’d been fuckbuddies, once upon a time. Graham and Regina, not Mia and Leanna.

That would be disgusting.

“Aw, Henry, don’t tell me you didn’t tell her _why_ I’m an _ex_ -nun.” She sighed. “Apparently God doesn’t hate me, but he does test me. Daily. Hourly, actually.”

“Amelia, please stop talking,” Regina said. She was pinching the bridge of her nose, which meant that she wasn’t _quite_ at the yelling-for-alcohol stage, so Mia could go a bit further if she wanted to.

She met Emma’s eyes in the mirror and winked.

“I mean, a vow of silence?” she asked. “How in the world am I supposed to hold to that?”

That got her a smile from Regina, who was directing Emma Swan through the winding roads that led to their houses. Mia’s was just down the road from Regina’s, and they even had a footpath. Mia never _took it_ , but still, it was there.

“You really scared us,” she said to Henry while the others were distracted, and he nodded. “Never again, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, curling up in on himself some more. He’d gotten more miserable as they got closer to home, even abandoning his book to cuddle with Mia. She kissed the top of his head. “Sorry about Leanna.”

And yeah, she’d expected him to apologize to his mum about that, not her, but he’d already done his rounds of apologizing in public. Maybe it was just that he really was Regina’s son, that nature-versus-nurture was all crap, but he’d kept this for now, when Regina could pretend not to hear. They could both pretend not to care that she’d been _that scared_.

It wasn’t something she thought Emma Swan capable of, actually. Her face was an open book, which was what was making Regina so stressed _now_. She checked on Henry without thinking about it, and her face went white every time she caught herself doing it. She wasn’t what Regina’d been afraid of for so long after she’d adopted Henry – she was worse.

This woman might walk into Henry’s life, make a place there with _all_ of them, and then walk right out because she was a bloody _coward_.

Mia had known Regina since – well, she _actually couldn’t_ count up the years, but it had been all of her life, it seemed. There was no way in hell that this was going to go well.

Which was why she’d tagged along, instead of letting Graham take her back to the station to get her own car. A scared Regina went on the offensive, always, and Mia had to make sure that that didn’t happen. She wasn’t sure why – maybe it was the fact that Emma _did_ look like the bloody Charming idiot, or maybe she was going crazy over fairytales like Henry was – but Emma seemed as inevitable as the sunrise. Not always pretty, and not nearly as romantic as some of her conquests seemed to think, but _necessary._

And making sure she didn’t _run_ was just as necessary.

* * *

Regina fidgeted while Emma Swan, Henry’s _birth mother_ , his biological mother, the woman with his _ears_ who was responsible for that sharp chin and quite possibly his eyebrows, looked around their living room. She quietly tried to keep from freaking out, because she had been _publicly_ freaking out when her baby came home with his birth mom.

Named _Emma_ , turning the ripe old age of _twenty-eight_ today.

They had _so many sessions_ with Dr. Hopper in their future. She could feel her insurance company’s disapproval, glared at the thought, and smiled at Emma Swan, who seemed to like the house. Which was good, because she was not going to be taking Henry away from it. Regina had plans in place for those scenarios, the ones where his mother – hah! – swanned her way into their lives and tried to _steal Henry_.

They didn’t all involve a shovel and lovely cherry trees, but there were at least four that did.

“Your computer has a new password – and no, it’s not one of the ones I use for mine,” she added, because Henry was opportunistic, smart, and liked to mock her for the ones she used on _her_ computers. Her professional and personal accounts had different combinations of passwords, but the combinations had to remain consistent in order for Regina to remain a sane, functioning adult in a technological world. Using words that she was _familiar_ with and _liked_ was not embarrassing. “And it is far past curfew, so off to bed you go. Did you feed him on the way over?”

She sounded pissed off, which was a default mode of hers. She figured Emma Swan would either _figure that out_ , or she’d get pissed off in turn.

Regina was almost _itching_ for a fight, so that was actually a comforting thought. Even if Emma Swan (and she had to stop thinking of her like that, like she was James Bond) was a bail bondsperson who could literally kick someone’s ass while wearing high heels, Regina had fury and years of weapons training.

That weapon being a fencing saber didn’t mean a thing.

“I didn’t realize it would take so long to get back,” Emma said, an apology written on her face, and Regina pulled the covered sandwiches from the refrigerator. Mia had already poured a glass of milk to help settle Henry down for bed. She took both the plate and the cup and waved her hand at Regina, who sighed, relieved.

If she’d been anything but heterosexual, they’d be married. She was sure of this.

“Storybrooke is a hidden gem, I suppose,” she said, trying for a smile and mostly succeeding. “Would you like a glass of water?”

Emma sighed.

“Got anything stronger?”

“Yes,” Regina said, pulling out the bottled mead and pouring more for herself than for Emma. “I assume you don’t want to stay the night in a small town,” she said when Emma looked at her. “And Mia’s mead has a kick.”

Emma knocked back her glass in one swallow, and her eyes went wide.

“You weren’t kidding about the kick.” There was a rasp in her voice.

Regina swirled the honey-wine in her mouth and swallowed, nodding. She gestured toward the couch, and Emma sat gingerly on one side. Regina sat on the other, looking at the woman who was the mother of her son. Mia hadn’t been wrong about her being beautiful, something Regina hadn’t noticed at the time. It was strange, though, because she could see bits of Henry in this stranger. She had the same curl in her shoulders Henry had when he was defensive, and her hands held the glass like a shield.

“So. I want to apologize to you,” she said, and Emma started to protest. “No, I need to apologize, honestly. I think that I gave Henry the wrong idea, when I told him that he was adopted. I told him that when he was eighteen I would help him find you, if he wanted to. And Henry is many things, including patient, but something came over him, and I can’t help but feel that I’m the one responsible for it.”

She caught the hint of a smirk that was quickly repressed, and Emma turned to her.

“You mean the thing with the curse?” she asked, and Regina nodded. “Well, honestly I doubt you could have predicted that. Since he’s ten and all. He wouldn’t tell me who you were in this version of reality. I assume the miller’s daughter?”

Regina laughed.

“Oh, no, no, if he thought I were the miller’s daughter from _that_ story, I’d feel horrible. The fairytales aren’t exactly what you’d think of, when it comes to fairytales. It’s a very complex mythology, and normally I would encourage Henry to explore that sort of thing, but some of the thematic elements aren’t exactly what ten-year-olds should be reading. If I’d known that when Mary Margaret gave him the book, I would have at least tried to keep him from reading too much of the – well, the horrible parts.”

The heart thing was still disturbing.

“He seems like a smart kid,” Emma said. “I mean, he actually took the time to make something out of stories, instead of just throwing the book out when he got to the weird parts.”

“Well, he _is_ smart,” Mia said, plopping down in between them. “Skipped a grade and everything. Plus, he thinks I’m Tinker Bell, and who wouldn’t want to be Tinker Bell? She’s awesome.” She had her own glass of mead, and Regina rolled her eyes. She knew where Mia would be sleeping tonight, even if _she_ believed she could get to her house from Regina’s while blindfolded and drunk. “So, Emma Swan, happy twenty-eighth birthday, which is sort of creepy. Regina’s too polite to ask this outright: what are you going to do now that you’ve met the kid I swore to protect ten years ago? Also, does his birth father have a clue that he’s got a kid, or was that _not_ a vibe I picked up on?”

Emma gaped at Mia.

“I _would_ like to know how much you would like to be involved in Henry’s life, if at all,” Regina said. “I understand that he caught you off-guard, and that you had a closed adoption for a reason, so if you don’t wish to be involved in his life, I’ll explain things to him as best as I am able. If you _do_ want to get to know him, to have a relationship with him, we can have a conversation about that. But I won’t have you deciding to be one thing today and then decide that you can’t be that tomorrow. I may hate Leanna, but I have other resources that can make your life a living hell if you hurt my son.” She smiled over her glass, the smile she and Zelena had inherited from Cora that was nothing but poison.

It was harder, going into Henry’s room after Emma left, than she’d thought it would be. He was asleep, of course, just like Mia was – although she was snoring on the guest bed – and his plate was on his bedside table. She turned off the light after brushing stray hairs from his forehead, sighing.

“I love you, my little prince of thieves.” She kissed him on the forehead. “I hope that’s enough.”

* * *

Belle closed up the library, noting that the clock tower’s hand hadn’t yet moved. She sighed, walking across the street up to Rumplestiltskin’s pawn shop, where his car idled, warming up in the October air. The seasons were the only thing that seemed to change in this blasted place, and Storybrooke’s winters were not exactly _kind_.

They also started before “actual” winter began, but that was, as Belle had learned reading historical books in the library, normal for most places in this realm. They measured winter by the position of the sun, not by how easy it was to find _ice_ on the road.

Twenty-eight years in this realm, and Belle still didn’t understand how in the world the people here _thought_.

“Clock tower hasn’t moved,” she said after a quick kiss hello. Rumple smiled, starting the car and patting her hand.

“The Savior has to actually be willing to stay here for more than a day – even two would work, but I have incentives in place that should make it at least a week – before time begins to move again. After that, it’s only a matter of time before she breaks the curse, though I still can’t quite see how.” One thing that hadn’t been lost because of the curse was Rumplestiltskin’s foresight, though it was diminished. He used the magical tools of this realm (and gave her a beautiful edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ to pay her bet that _no_ realm was truly _without_ magic), but they were imprecise, and much of what they showed had to be interpreted through a cultural lens that Belle and Rumple didn’t have, even with the veneer of false memories.

Belle laced their fingers together.

“I think True Love’s Kiss may be required,” she said. “And she’ll have to believe. I think that’s what those last few readings meant.” Despite the horrifying nature of the card, it apparently meant, well, ground shaking changes in perspective. Earthquakes _did_ cause fires, and goodness knew they could destroy houses.

She caught a smile at the corner of Rumple’s mouth. It wasn’t bitter anymore, thank the gods.

Their home had a view of the clock tower, and the next night, Belle looked up from her reading, as she had done every day off she’d had for twenty-eight years, expecting to see the same stillness she always had.

The clock was on eight-fifteen, and she sighed, almost missing it as she turned back to her book.

The clock ticked forward one minute, and her heart raced.

 _Finally_.


	8. Chapter Seven

She was going to kill Robin. She really, really was.

“If I recall correctly, you were a fully enthusiastic participant,” he said, grinning, helping her up so that she could waddle around the camp that had been steadily growing, to the clearing where a wooden stump centuries old (and centuries old before it had been cut down) sat. This was where they held their court, haphazard and makeshift as it was.

There was Tinker Bell, of course, changing every day that the forest did. Next to her sat Marian, with a quiver of arrows at her feet and a cup of tea, gently speaking to Tink in a way that suggested a wedding in the future, differences be damned. Friar Tuck took up her other side, his staff leaning against the back of his chair. Little John and Will, two of the Merry Men (the latter a new and slightly nebulous addition, but with enough common sense to be here), sat next to him, their three heads bent together, mapping out defense strategies they could use if an army managed to make it through the strange protective spell Sherwood cast about its edges.

One thing about Tinker Bell that never changed was how she smiled at Regina, even if now she was having difficulty controlling her teeth: they kept trying to become sharp, like thorns, when she opened her mouth like that. Probably because animals threatened each other when they bared their teeth, and though they were short on pixie lore (Tink just said that it had been ages since anyone had heard from pixies outside a land that had gone dark centuries ago), Regina imagined it must be something similar. She smiled now, teeth firmly flat, and helped her sit down.

Robin was next to her, four elders of Nottingham to his side, all firmly endorsed by Tuck, three women and one man. Two of the women were even darker than Marian, and the man had, upon introduction, explained without prompting that his family hailed from the far reaches of Agrabah.

No one stood on principle here, which made her feel more at ease, sprawled out and wearing a _dress_ again. Both a midwife and Tink had declared that only one child rested in her womb, but some days, she was unsure. They were very active, especially when Regina wanted to rest.

(They seemed to understand when to be still, at least, but she couldn’t think about bedding her husband with a ferocity she had not realized was in her, not with lovemaking, while her belly stuck out over his body, not at council meetings.)

“How go our attempts to explain to the army camped outside Sherwood’s borders that they really _can’t_ get in?” she asked Anis, who had just returned from his journey to attempt some form of parley with King George’s army. The man shook his head, sadness and disgust written on his features. He was younger than her father, but he seemed so much older as he spoke to them.

“We sent a message with one of Zora’s birds.” He inclined his head to the stately matron, whose dark brow was knitted in concern. “Our agents in the trees watched – I am so sorry, my lady, but they destroyed both message and bird in fire. We could not risk sending a messenger in their stead.”

Zora nodded, accepting the hand that Anis gave her. Regina, though unversed in a _practical_ situation like this, felt the blood drain from her face. She imagined King George’s men, had they sent in a messenger without knowledge of their cruelty, possibly doing much worse than burning them alive.

“Thank you, Anis. I apologize, both that the mission was unsuccessful and that one of your birds suffered that cruelty, Zora.” She could feel the tears welling at the corners of her own eyes. The older woman smiled at her for a moment.

“If they would kill an innocent bird, I do not wish to imagine what they would have done to any messenger, Regina,” she said. They had no formal titles here, though they knew that Regina, as Guardian of Sherwood, had the ultimate responsibility to make decisions that impacted them all. It was a heavy burden, but not unwelcome. She remembered thinking about being queen of _nothing_ , of having no voice, and thought that this was what she had been missing. Along with her freedom, she had wanted a voice.

Renee, whose white cloud of hair was a stark contrast to her dark skin, cleared her throat.

“I believe we can all agree that they will attempt to attack us in some way,” she said, voice stronger than her age suggested. Regina watched heads nod in unison, even Tinker Bell’s. “Families with young children should be encouraged to move closer to the center of the Forest, as well as any younger people who may accidentally pass through the border and be conscripted.”

Regina sighed. In the weeks since Sherwood Forest had accepted _her_ as a Guardian, of all people, things had changed rapidly. First there had been backlash, especially from farmers whose fields could possibly become forest at any time. When that hadn’t happened, there had been meetings that left Regina bone-tired and angry at the world, people jockeying for favor, for her _ear_ , as if she were a queen. Protests had still continued, but those who truly thought that this was a coup had disappeared, reappearing within the kingdom, when the protective shield came into effect.

One of the reasons there were four elders on the council was so that protests could be quelled with words. But sometimes Regina wished that she had argued more about Marian being one of Nottingham’s people. This was one of those times.

“I will not drive people from their homes. It could both cause a panic and create tensions between our citizens. We’ve already sent out messages warning of the possible dangers of remaining near the border.” She shook her head. “It’s their choice, and their choice matters.” Figuring out how to get that through Renee’s head had been a constant struggle. “How are our other defensive measures going?”

Friar Tuck presented her with what they had gathered, information and suggestions that she had to look through carefully. They had no standing army, and they would never have one, as far as Regina was concerned. The Merry Men had enough skill among them that they could teach people to fight, and they _were_ doing so, sending in reports on how the volunteers were doing weekly.

The only problems that could arise were if a more powerful sorcerer breached the barrier, because a militia full of raw recruits, some of them too smart for their own good, would be slaughtered in any attack that _did_ occur. Regina didn’t believe that the barrier could be destroyed completely, but she didn’t know, exactly, what it _was_. It was fueled by pixie dust, and pixie dust was almost alive, or maybe it actually _was_ alive, since it came from trees. It had protected them so far, and two of the laws former Guardians had written seemed to be part of a spell to maintain it.

Other than that, no one had a clue.

But there were other things to be discussed; resources were a concern, especially for refugees coming into the forest.

“There are fruit trees, and the wild vegetables are easy to gather if they prefer them to what the farmers grow, but hunting has been an issue.” Marian tapped her fingers against the old stump. “The superstitions about Sherwood Forest are making it difficult for anyone hunting to become calm enough to actually _catch_ anything. The doctors and healers all agree that everyone needs to eat meat if they can, and no one wants to slaughter their farm animals.”

Regina looked to Robin, who sighed.

“Trappers are doing well,” he said. “And the Merry Men are doing as well as they ever have, but no one knows what we’re going to do with what we catch, so much of it is going into the smokehouse for winter.”

“The forest spirit made it clear to me that, in the past, what was captured or killed was shared among the people. There are ways to organize a similar system, especially if big game is caught. As for superstition, I doubt that we can actually _change_ their beliefs so quickly.” Winter was approaching quickly, and smoking their meat was a good idea, especially if the season was as strong as it had been last year. Regina had been in a _palace_ and had felt the chill.

Council meetings always ended at noon, but Regina pulled herself out of her chair after everyone else had left. It was her _responsibility_ to look after these people, some of them scared and confused even after a month.

A steaming bowl of stew was set in front of her, away from the plans she was drawing out on parchment – which would run out eventually as well – about resource allocation. She was actually very good at this sort of thing, she thought, and looked up to see Robin smirking at her. He had his own bowl, and he set a wooden spoon beside her bowl.

“You have to eat as well, darling,” he said, pointing at her ever-expanding belly. “Roland needs food as well.”

She pursed her lips at that name. Robin laughed.

“My father’s name,” he explained. “I thought, if we have a boy, it would be a nice name.”

“Roland, Robin, and Regina Hood,” she said. “I’m sensing a theme. What about my father’s name? Henry is a good name.”

His grin widened into a smile as she started to eat.

“I believe our agreement was that if we had a boy, I would name him, as my suggestions for names for our daughter are ‘laughable and insane’? If she’s a girl, you’ve already decided on a name, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m not telling you until she’s born. Roland is a good name for a boy. If we have two boys, though, Henry. There should be some variation in our children’s names.”

She watched his face go soft at the thought of more children. Personally, she was uncomfortable all the time, except for that brief period when she had dragged them into their strange home (a _tree_ , of all things) every time she saw him. He hadn’t complained at the time.

He was also _very_ bad at feminine names. Leaf, Opal, River, Maple, and Dahlia had been his suggestions, and she was _not_ saddling her child with any of those names. She had briefly entertained River as a possibility, but it was wrong, somehow. And every flower name he had suggested, after seeing her face, was too _sweet_ , Daisy and Lily and Juniper – no.

She felt the baby move as she ate, and she knew that Amber would appreciate her intervention when she was older. Robin would even like the name, but it was just _fun_ to keep this little secret to herself, when everything else she did was so public.

Setting up a system took less time than she’d thought it would, especially with the help of the Merry Men throughout Sherwood, but it was still uncomfortably close to winter by the time they were finished. She liked to think that it _wasn’t_ because she was so close to birth, but she didn’t exactly look powerful when she was being helped out of her chair by her husband and waddling around the village that was growing around them.

When her time came, early in the morning on a chilly day, she didn’t let Robin leave her side, despite the old midwife’s clucking about men being involved in childbirth.

“I’m either going to hold his hand or _set something_ _on fire_ ,” she hissed, which shut everyone up. Tinker Bell, on her other side, held her hand as well, soothing some of the pain with some sort of pixie magic. She tried to explain something about certain trees in Sherwood, but Regina glared at her.

She shut up.

“I hate you so much,” she said, sitting back on Robin’s chest after a particularly horrible contraction. Usually this would take place in a bed, but the midwife had clucked her tongue at _that_ , too, and they had fashioned a strange sort of chair that reminded her of a chamber pot, hollow and _revealing_. “I hate you and I hate you and I hate _you_ most of all,” she said, glaring at Tinker Bell. “True-Love-finding-fairy-pixie—” And she had to stop, then, because the pain was back.

“Soon, now,” the midwife said. Marian had replaced Robin on one side by now, though he was holding her and comforting her, which made her the worst person in the world, except no, he was responsible for all this pain. The sun was high in the sky over their heads, and everything hurt, but now the pain was different.

She pushed down, and it felt like she was using a _chamber pot_ , but this was different, and she heard herself let out a hoarse scream as she _shoved_.

And then there was more shoving, but there was a baby crying. Regina wondered if she was actually defecating _on the ground_. The midwife shook her head.

“Oh, gods, I said that out loud,” she said. The – the other thing, the _placenta_ , which was disgusting and _strange_ , it fell out of her, and there was a ropey cord between it and the baby, who was covered in goop. Marian, there as an assistant to the midwife, squeezed her hand once more before going over to her to help with the baby. The midwife had a pair of scissors, and Regina almost screamed, but she was just cutting the cord away from the baby.

Regina cried when they put her in her arms. She had a full head of hair, not dark like she’d expected, but red, bright and beautiful and not at all horrifying, because _she wasn’t Cora_. She was Regina’s baby girl. Her eyes were infant-blue, but Regina knew that they would be Robin’s, and she already had signs of dimples. They left them alone for a moment, the three of them a family.

“I love you, and you are perfect,” she said, and Robin nodded against her shoulder. “Your name is Amber. It is a beautiful jewel, but it comes from life, from the trees around you. You are more precious than any jewel, so you had to have a name that was more than any of them. I swear, I will protect you all of my days, and you will be free to be whatever you choose to be.” She kissed her soft forehead, and a warm breeze of magic filled the forest, True Love’s Kiss sealing the unintended spell.

The world was glittering with magic, and she could see it inside Amber. She was a child born of true love, her heart a glittering jewel that no one could ever take from her, except herself. Light magic, as well as the inherited darkness, filled her from crown to toe.

Regina hadn’t believed in love at first sight, and she hadn’t loved Robin at first sight. But this love at first sight, yes, she _knew_ it was real.

“Amber Isabel Hood,” Robin murmured in her ear. “I think she ought to have a middle name that honors her pixie godmother, don’t you?”

“Considering the amount of magic she has, I think it’s far more than appropriate,” Regina said. “I like this idea, _middle names_. It ought to be practiced more widely.” She shifted, regenerative magic making the aches in her body less horrifying. “We have to present her, you know. Even if we aren’t royalty, there ought to be some ceremonies.”

“A reminder that we are _a_ people, instead of simply people gathered together.” He nodded. Regina hummed. She hadn’t expected him to acquiesce so easily.

Tinker Bell burst into tears when they presented Amber’s name to the people, but then there was a ripple in the shield, and in a puff of green smoke, a green woman with beautiful red hair appeared in front of Regina. She was wearing a black dress and a green pendant on a beautiful chain around her neck, and her lips were painted red, red as apples, red as lifeblood, and when she smiled, Regina recognized her.

“Zelena?” she asked. There was an instant – barely a moment, but Regina had been tutored by Cora to see miniscule emotions – where shock at recognition flitted across her face. Then the smile was back, and she curtsied, barely.

“Regina,” she said, like they were the best of friends – and they _had been_ , but something was wrong in her tone, the way she looked at Amber and Regina. “My dear, sweet little sister, I simply couldn’t miss this day. Look at my niece! She looks just like our mother, don’t you think?” she asked. She laughed. “Did you know that you didn’t actually kill her? She’s a queen now, in another realm. She’s quite nasty, you know.”

“You don’t remember,” Regina said. “Oh, gods, Zelena…”

The smile disappeared.

“I don’t need _your_ pity, little sister.” She moved to touch Amber, but Regina acted out of instinct, her magic flaring out in front of her, still tinted purple for all that it was light now. It visibly burned that green skin, and Zelena flinched. “Well, I suppose you don’t have a reason to trust me, my husband being quite cross at you for stealing part of his kingdom. But your borders protect you against those with the intent to harm you.”

Regina examined her. She was taller than Regina, with eyes that were ice-blue. Against her skin, her hair seemed darker than it was. Regina imagined that it was lighter than their mother’s, with curls that refused to remain tamed.

“Except for those with my blood, it seems,” Regina said. Zelena smirked and winked. “Queen Zelena, we have sent messages to your husband. You are as much a child of magic as I am, and you know that magic will do what it wishes. Thank you for telling me about our mother. When I understood the Dark One’s history with her more fully, I realized that he had a more personal motive than I did to want her gone. I can’t imagine why or how they became lovers. I am just grateful that he was not my father, and so his contract with her was void.”

This time, Zelena’s laugh was bitter.

“She loved me, at the time,” she said. “But I was already born. I belonged to him, and our mother could not change the contract. Magic will do what it wishes, you know. But _that_ does not matter now. Not at a celebration.”

There was wind in the trees. _Threat to Sherwood,_ flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes, and now she was the one crying.

“It _does_ matter. And I’m sorry, Zelena.” Tinker Bell’s fine fingers had become sharp needles, and the forest roared around them. “You will leave Sherwood. As Guardian of Sherwood Forest, I will enforce the laws of the land. Your husband poses a threat, so you do as well.” She hated that law, but – it wasn’t untrue.

 “See you again, _sis_.” Zelena conjured a broom. She tilted her head, smiling with all of her teeth. “Sherwood _will_ fall.”

She flew away, the barrier above the trees shutting her out as soon as she was past it.


	9. Chapter Eight

Some patterns are consistent in any reality. Some are not.

Emma stayed with Regina, because staying at Granny’s cost money, and because Regina had gotten her out of the drunk tank. She _stayed_ because Grant Walsh, sincere as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, tried to get her to leave. He met her at Granny’s, apologizing for his wife and laughing about sisterly rivalries. He was subtler than most bail jumpers, but not everyone had Emma’s superpower. Every word rang hollow, except for when he talked about his wife. He loved her, but he hated Henry and Regina and _her_.

Emma Swan always stayed in Storybrooke. There isn’t a place in the multiverse where she _didn’t_ , because Rumplestiltskin is a very thorough man. She always mistrusted the mayor, and she always disliked Mr. Gold. Something about him, the way he smirked when he was clever, or maybe the color, the shape of his eyes, reminded her of pain. (Sometimes it wasn’t old pain, either. Sometimes Neal was with her, a lover or a friend, and he curled up in his sleep and had nightmares that she didn’t understand. Henry was always sorry that he’d found his grandfather and got them into this mess, in those realities.)

She was the Savior. She stayed.

Regina, because she’d trusted Belle more than she’d trusted herself, didn’t remember a thing about their world. She read all the chapters in the book, about the Enchanted Forest and the realm that bordered it so much that it overlapped, a land called Oz that was filled with magic, but also afraid of it. She didn’t see her sister in the red-haired young woman, green or not. She read the last pages of the book, and even though it disconcerted her to see that blanketed baby named Emma, who would return on her twenty-eighth birthday, she believed that it was a coincidence.

Henry saw magic in everything, she reasoned. It was his way of coping with the world.

But things started to change, even though Regina had no idea _why_. They finally fixed the clock in the clock tower, which was a relief. Emma was good with Henry, good _for_ him; he wasn’t so afraid anymore. She’d taken a job as a deputy, which was a little shocking, but in Storybrooke, crime wasn’t exactly a problem. She didn’t care that her room was full of dried herbs, just that it had a bed. She _did_ care that Graham had kissed her, and asked if that was normal for him.

It wasn’t, and everything stopped being normal the next day.

“So, you think you don’t have a heart,” she said, watching the pulse in Graham’s sweaty throat. “Even though I can see it pumping blood through your veins right now.”

“I know it sounds mad, but please, Regina. I know we didn’t work out, but can you at least trust me to know that I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t completely serious?” He had a drawing in his hands, a crude replica of what Regina recognized from her visits to the crypt. He had never been there, so far as Regina knew.

She took him there, her heart aching when she saw her father’s tomb in the center. Her mother had been cremated, but she had taken care of her father’s body, since Zelena wouldn’t.

“Please remember that you’re on hallowed ground,” she said, and it didn’t come out as disdainful as it could have, because she was staring at the etched words, _Henry Mills_ , and she remembered coming here with Henry the first week she’d had him, swearing that she’d protect him as long as he was alive, and that he was named for a good man who hadn’t had a choice, but that Henry _did_ , and he always would.

Graham nodded, and he looked down at the ground.

“Regina,” he said. There was something in his voice that made her pause. “Is there something _underneath_ this?”

The scrape marks were pretty distinctive, she guessed.

“Yes. A basement, of sorts. Why?”

“Can we go there now?” he asked. Regina set the flowers on her father’s tomb before letting him help her move the stone out of the way, because the sooner they got him over this little bout of insanity, the sooner he could go to a hospital to be treated.

Then he stared at the wall of Mills family effects, the rows and rows of boxes in the wall, and his hand touched one of them, shaking.

“Only you can open it,” he said, suddenly. “Please, Regina, I can – I can _hear it_.”

She could hear it too, and her heart actually skipped a beat. Her hand moved to take the knob, but the drawer shot out of the wall as soon as she got close. Inside was a box, and Regina’s heart was beating like horses’ hooves on stone, and her hands shook when they opened the box.

“Oh my god,” she said, turning away. “Oh my god, oh my god, this can’t be happening.”

“My lady,” Graham said, and she turned to – to chastise him, or maybe to scream in horror, but he was holding—

“That doesn’t look like a heart,” she managed, a gasp. There was a wall in her mind, and she felt something beating against it, something huge and impossible behind it all. “It’s glowing.”

Which was stupid to say, but all Graham did was shrug.

“It’s magic,” he said. “But I don’t have any. You do.”

She almost puked when she realized what he was asking her to do. Her stomach heaved, and she leaned against a wall, trying to breathe. Oh god, oh god. She didn’t even _believe_ in God, or magic, but Graham was holding a glowing gem that _was_ magic, so belief didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

Her hands were still shaking when she took the heart, but she didn’t dare hold on too tight. She might break it, which was pure fucking hysteria, and Regina breathed in, deep and long, staring at the heart that didn’t belong to her. She could feel Graham, every emotion he was experiencing right now, and she didn’t ask him how she was supposed to put it back.

She knew it had to hurt, because he gasped before sagging against a wall himself, breaths hard and heavy in the air.

“That was magic,” she said, and thought, again, that that was stupidity. But it _was_ magic. “Come on, we have to go back to my house now.”

He nodded, and she wondered why he was looking at her like that, but he followed her and seemed to _escort her_ back to her house. Henry and Emma were laughing at the television, but their laughter cut off when Regina tugged Graham into the house.

“Sheriff?” Emma asked. “Regina?”

“Hello, Miss Swan. I’m sorry if I inconvenienced you,” she said. She walked through the den, into Henry’s room where the book was sitting innocently on the bed. Henry followed her, but Graham and Emma didn’t, making small talk. The Huntsman was talking about _the weather_ with the Savior. _“He told me to run. A_ huntsman _told me to run.”_

The wall was thinner with every step toward the book. She sat down on Henry’s bed, and he sat down on the other side of the book. _“Our story will reach this world.”_

“Mom, are you okay?”

_“Regina, how can you be okay with this? What if it fails?”_

“I’m fine, Henry.”

_“We’ll be fine. You’ll be safe.”_

She opened the book to see a girl in riding gear stealing back her purse. A man with a lion tattoo was laughing at his best friend, and the air was smoky.

Everything rushed in at the same time, vague memories overwritten with true ones, fresh pain that should be old filling her chest. A rush of hot tears spilled out of her eyes, and she understood why Graham had looked at her like she might break. Amber’s outburst of anger and magic, Roland’s tears, Heather and Daphne’s innocent naïveté that refused to acknowledge that Mommy was going away forever, Robin’s last, desperate kiss, filled her mind.

The boy in front of her was gaping, and she hugged him, laughing through her tears.

“Thank you, Henry,” she said. “I love you so much.” She pulled away, then, and smiled at him. “I promised you the same things I promised your sisters and brother, you know. She couldn’t steal that, my little prince of thieves.”

And Henry’s smile was as wide and bright as the sun.

* * *

Belle was behind the counter at Rumplestiltskin’s, sorting through some paperwork that they’d have to file with their bitch of a mayor, when there were two coughs that roused her from her contemplations. She looked up, surprised to see that man, Graham Humbert, with Regina. She’d never met him in the Enchanted Forest, of course, since he’d been chained by his own heart to _Zelena_ , but she’d heard of him. Without his heart, he had been the most ruthless killer of Zelena’s army of spies, but with it, legends said, he was more honorable than any other man in the realms.

“Ms. Mills. Sheriff Humbert. Mr. Gold is out at the moment, but I can help you with anything you need in the meantime.” Because she was also Lacy, and Lacy was also Belle (all of the bad parts of her, the parts that got a thrill out of an adventure because of the moment when it could all go to shit but _didn’t_ ) she added a wink. “We have some items at the back that might interest you.”

Regina actually laughed, while Graham folded his arms disapprovingly. Well, _that_ hadn’t been her intent. Unless—

“I’d like to talk to Mr. Gold about the vial I gave him on my wedding day,” Regina finally said. She was still giggly, like she couldn’t control herself, but Belle beamed. She hopped over the counter and was met with an embrace, a hug that she’d been waiting thirty years for. “Oh gods, Belle, I’m so glad I gave the potion to you,” she said.

“Thank you, thank you so much.” They were both close to tears. “How did you remember?”

Regina looked over at Graham, at the huntsman who had saved Snow White’s life, and he bowed his head to them. Belle frowned.

“I _am_ still competent in matters of magic, dear,” Regina said, which was enough for Belle to hug her again. Regina hadn’t _lost_ the dignity and nobility she’d carried when Belle met her, but something in it had been dimmed, without everything that had made it worth being noble. When Rumple had brought Henry to her, she had brightened, a bit, but she still didn’t _remember_ herself. “Although there _were_ some rather horrifying hysterics when I realized what he was holding. But I do need to speak to – oh my lord, he’s named _Adam Gold_ ,” she said.

Rumple came out of the back room; the back of the store opened to the car park. He was smirking, and she kissed it off of his face. She was still cross with him about poor Ashley, even if it hadn’t been his fault that Zelena enacted her curse when the girl was just shy of giving birth. She hadn’t been sympathetic about the bruise _at all_. But that smirk deserved kissing, if only to leave him looking at her like she was a precious jewel.

“I think our beloved Madam Mayor only had partial control over our names. I doubt the name Blanchard ever occurred to her,” he said. “So that makes four who remember. I can’t say I’m as pleased as I could be that the huntsman’s in that number.”

Regina tapped her fingers against the countertop, glaring at Rumplestiltskin like she could still set things on fire, and his head was what she wanted to burn.

“Well, I am,” she said. “I’ve come for the vial, and don’t pretend you don’t know which one I’m talking about.”

They had exchanged rather a lot of potions between the two of them, but Belle was uncomfortably certain of which one she was talking about.

“It’s not here, dearie, and I don’t mean the shop or the town. Don’t worry. There’s a reason it’s not here, and it’s not just to keep certain green fingers off of it.”

Regina’s eyebrow hitched higher.

“And the other one?” she asked.

“Every love is different, and this one is Ms. Swan’s to uncover. Unless you plan on telling her that you’re as ‘delusional’ as your son and possibly losing custody in the process, I can’t help you _now_.”

Belle almost glared at him. She knew exactly where the potion was – but if things were going in the direction she _thought_ they were, they’d need more than the potion, when the time came.

With Regina’s memory restored, it was only a matter of time.


	10. Chapter Nine

The first months of Amber Isabel Hood’s life were spent indoors, sealed away from the killing snow that touched every corner of the Enchanted Forest each year. Regina didn’t leave her side, amazed at every new thing that came seemingly every day. Her thick red hair was growing by the day, and her eyes were mirrors of her father’s. She was going to have Regina’s chin, though, and people would think that she looked like her grandmother, unless something changed drastically.

Cora was alive. That sent shivers down Regina’s spine whenever she thought about it. Rumplestiltskin might be ultimately responsible for her fate, but Regina had pushed her through the mirror. She had forced her and her evil on an innocent realm.

Love, she had been taught, was weakness. Looking at Amber, sleeping peacefully on her father’s chest, completely unaware of the growing tensions between Sherwood and King George, she couldn’t understand what Cora meant. She would destroy the world for this child, would do whatever it took to protect her unless _she_ didn’t want her to, and all of that came from love. Her magic could destroy without being dark, now, if she only thought about what she would do for this child.

Cora hadn’t loved her. It hurt so much that sometimes she couldn’t breathe, and she would have, in another time, let that hurt turn into soul-shattering rage.

Instead, she looked at her daughter, who would look like her grandmother, the woman who didn’t love her own daughter, and she told her, every day, “I love you.”

News came from Zora’s birds that King George was facing more money and political troubles. With his son more focused on bedding the most beautiful women in the realm than actually governing and his wife focused on breaking _their_ barriers, his kingdom would fall into ruin soon, if there wasn’t a coup first.

King Leopold was doing well, teaching Snow White the skills that a leader needed to know. His kingdom was prosperous, even if some of Sherwood had reached into his borders. He had sent a messenger with an old map, showing Regina the proper borders of Sherwood at its fullest. Of course, he sent them to the Guardian of Sherwood, and he had no idea that that was Regina – of that, she was sure. She couldn’t imagine he would be happy if his dead wife revealed herself as the de facto leader in Sherwood.

Regina was learning other skills, since she had long ago learned the necessary sacrifices – the truly necessary sacrifices, not what Cora considered appropriate – that leaders made for their people. Knowing that war could come to Sherwood, if Zelena or someone else figured out a way around the barrier, she was learning how to fight with a sword.

Robin had his bow, which she had enchanted to never miss its target, so long as his aim and intent was true, and she had a sword that was meant for stabbing but could also slice someone open. When winter’s first warm day dawned, she took her practice outside, along with Amber, who sat in Tinker Bell’s lap as she made magic dance. Laurel, one of the village elders (who may or may not have been involved with Friar Tuck at one point), corrected her form when she needed it. It wasn’t exactly peaceful, but Amber was safe and warm in Tink’s arms, and she laughed at the swordplay.

“When spring breaks, I would like you to officiate my wedding,” Tinker Bell said during a break in the routine, as Amber clapped and yellow sparks rose from her fingertips. They both looked down at the baby, who was laughing at the show she was making, and Regina almost forgot what Tinker Bell had asked. “I didn’t do that.”

“I know,” Regina said, smiling at Amber. “She’s more powerful than I am. Come here, querida.” She lifted Amber into her arms, despite the way sweat trickled down her back. Amber made a face, but they were still in the warm space Tinker Bell had created, so she didn’t fuss. “Have you asked Marian what she thinks?”

Marian wasn’t quite a friend, not like Tinker Bell was. Regina trusted her not to break Tink’s heart, of course, or she would have had words with the woman at the beginning of their courtship, and Marian could be counted on as a Council member. They were different women, and Regina knew in her heart that if she hadn’t found Robin first, Marian would have won _his_ heart eventually.

It caused some tension.

Tinker Bell, who had tied back her hair in a messy bun, rolled her eyes. Her skin had taken on a distinctly green tint, though unlike the unnatural beauty of Zelena’s skin, hers was the color of a new branch that had been shucked of its bark, almost _human_. It was natural on her, with her pixie magic, so precious and rare that Regina sometimes wondered how it could be possible.

“Marian suggested it, actually. I think there may be a few people who want the Guardian to bless their marriages, if only to help them process that they’re welcome in Sherwood.”

Regina sighed, bouncing Amber in her arms. She wasn’t small, the healers had assured her. She was perfectly normal for her age, even if Regina wanted her to be a little sturdier if Robin was going to throw her in the air like a sack of flour.

“I suppose Marian didn’t put that idea in your head,” she said, and Tinker Bell blushed. It was strange, as if her blood ran green. “I’m not averse to the idea, though I’m unsure about marriage traditions – I haven’t had time to watch anyone’s wedding.”

Tinker Bell practically lit up. Regina and Amber shared a wary glance.

* * *

“Do you know how many hand fastings I have given today?” Regina asked. The question was directed at no one in particular, but since Robin was the only person in the house who could answer her in more than a string of baby babble, she assumed he understood that _he_ should answer, or not, because she was _irritated_. “Thirty-two. Eight of the couples were _already married_.”

She looked at Robin, who was holding Amber’s hands as she walked around the large common room in their house (and her mind still couldn’t comprehend how, exactly, a tree could segment itself into separate floors and rooms, but it did), and when he smiled at her, all the tension inside melted away. She smiled at them, at Amber’s fierce determination to walk and Robin’s even fiercer determination that she not break herself while doing so, and she sighed.

“Look at you go,” she said, sitting down for the first time in – gods, it seemed like it had been _hours_ of repeated words, red bands representing love braided by her own hands, scraping her raw by the end of the day. “You’re going to be walking on your own before we know it, aren’t you?”

“Amah!” Amber squealed, Regina understood that some parents spoke to their children as if they were fools, but Regina’s baby girl was smart, and quite capable of understanding her.

“And then you’ll be running into everything, I know,” she replied. “Just try not to run into thorns?”

“Amamamamama!” Amber was frowning at her.

“Please?” Regina asked.

“She _is_ our daughter, darling,” Robin said, letting Amber crawl on the floor. “She’ll undoubtedly find trouble whether we will it or not.”

Regina considered this. She looked down at Amber, who was crawling straight for her and using her trousers to pull herself up. She laughed at Regina, who took her in her arms and unfastened the laces on her shirt. It wasn’t dignified, but neither Amber nor Robin seemed to care. Apparently some of the women in Sherwood fed their children until they were almost two. Regina, who was already wincing at the few teeth that Amber _did_ have, was not going to be one of those women.

“Perhaps we should put her in a sleeping trance for the next three years,” Regina said, because the only other alternative was _hell_.

Robin shook his head, sighing.

“You don’t age when that happens, darling.”

“Mierda.” Regina snapped her fingers. She smiled at Robin, who was watching Amber decide that she was going to maul her _other_ breast now. “How has introducing new foods gone today?” Amber wasn’t desperately hungry like she had been when she’d begun to wean her off of breastmilk. Those days had made Regina feel like a monster, but the mothers who _didn’t_ indulge in the insanity of constant teeth had assured her that she would eat.

Robin put his hands on his head as if he were about to tear his hear out. Regina held in a laugh. Robin pointed at her, which probably meant that she hadn’t been very successful.

“She’s found out that she can throw things on the floor, and she can then watch Papa pick them up and hand them back. And then she can throw them _again_. I don’t think that she particularly likes goats’ milk, though, because usually she doesn’t break the cups. Her magic is starting to worry some of the more skittish villagers.”

At that Regina could only sigh. She stroked through Amber’s hair, careful of the spot that was still knitting itself together.

The truth was, she had _no_ idea about dealing with Amber’s rapidly growing talent for magic. She hadn’t been doing magic from the cradle, so far as she knew, though in retrospect she could identify moments where she had obviously been using magic unconsciously. It was linked to strong emotions, and short of hurting her nine-month-old child, _she_ couldn’t control her magic.

“Maybe Tinker Bell could help, if we can tear her away from Marian for more than two minutes. There have to have been younger fairies. I don’t think that they just hatch like dwarves.”

Amber’s magical instruction had to be put on hold, though, because Regina’s father had come to Sherwood.


	11. Chapter Ten

Zelena stared at her skin. It was still green, still strange and unnatural, and she didn’t _understand_ why it should be that way.

“I have everything I’ve ever wanted,” she said, and Walsh, human today, laid his head against a pillowed couch in her chambers with a sigh. “I have power, and comfort that _you_ never focused on helping the poor with in Oz.” She glared at him, and he threw up his hands in surrender. “I have a purpose, and my magic isn’t regarded with immediate suspicion.”

“You don’t have the memory Regina does,” Walsh said, shrugging when she frowned at him, confused. “Even looking through the Mirror doesn’t give you any answers, which never happened – ever.” He was actually serious now. “Please don’t turn me into a monkey for saying this, but even though your _magic_ might not be suspicious, people don’t trust you. And I know you watched Henry – Enrique, or whatever – find Regina.”

Zelena’s teeth ached from grinding them together. They were perfect, white and straight as magic could make them (the only magic _her_ father had ever approved of), but still.

 _Enrique_ and Regina had babbled in that _stupid_ , _incomprehensible_ language for hours, all smiles and tears that weren’t angry or even frustrated. He had held _Amber Hood_ in his arms, laughing when lights sparked in her fingers. Zelena had made a lightning storm – in King Leopold’s land, of course. She wouldn’t jeopardize her place at court, not over something so petty.

And it was petty, envying Regina the spineless father who would never speak up when Cora was cruel to Regina. Even Mother had been able to rein Father in, when she was still alive. Just because he loved his traitor of a daughter and the baby with almost as much power as Zelena herself – it was petty, and small, but Zelena wanted to rip his heart out and crush it in front of them all.

As for the memory…

“It could make me weak,” she said, spine straight. “Whatever it is, it made _Regina_ regret throwing me out of her bloody forest. Focusing on that instead of on crossing the barrier would be juvenile.”

Walsh was visibly holding himself back.

“For gods’ sakes, spit it out, or I won’t have a reason to tolerate you in this form,” she said. That was untrue, though unspoken. He hated her, and she could understand why – actually, she smiled thinking about how much he hated her – but when he was a flying monkey, he didn’t have the vocabulary to advise her properly. He was quite good at that, actually, for all that he was a liar and a thief.

“ _Envy_ is juvenile,” he said. “You’re so focused on making Regina feel like you did, which you know somewhere in your mind is impossible, that you make mistakes. You didn’t kill Sir Henry, for example, and you showed your face to practically everyone in Sherwood. Even if you weren’t green, they’d recognize you by your voice. If you want something that she has, you have to take it, not focus on _why_.”

Like he had taken Oz. It infuriated her, how he could actually _understand her_ , at least to an extent. It made her want to slap him, turn him into something that wasn’t alive bit by bit, but she wondered sometimes, about other circumstances in which they could have met. She was married to a king who most certainly did not trust her, and he was a fool of a dictator without any power left.

If they had met in any other way, she thought, they’d be fools and actually like, even love, each other.

But she would never have had this.

“I can _never_ forget why I’m doing this,” she hissed, and Walsh was _smirking_. She was going to turn him into a monkey, she was going to do it, but her feet were taking her closer to him, and she was searching for disgust, for _something_ , and she saw hate, and fear, and dark rage. No disgust. Not even a hint of it. He stood up to see her better, eye to eye, and something in her body staggered.

They weren’t touching. He wasn’t her equal, and he knew it. She saw it in his eyes, the moment he realized that he couldn’t do whatever it was that he obviously wanted to do. He was chained to her, and that chain didn’t allow for – for this. He stepped back, and she resisted the urge to step forward.

She couldn’t lose her power, over him or with the king. Not for a bit of lust that could never, ever be love. She thought about tearing Walsh’s heart out of his chest, and she turned him into a flying monkey so that he wouldn’t look at her like he could see it in her eyes. She wasn’t her fool of a sister, and that thought should have comforted her, but it only made it harder to look at him and _not_ want.

He was better off as a monkey. He could remember that he hated her, too.

She caught her breath, and she thought about his counsel. He was not a useless Lord with no experience in these matters. He had taken a kingdom with nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and the sisters had _let him_.

A drifting thought, unease, that she had dethroned him, _defeated him_ , made her swallow. She was the Wicked Witch of the West. She was a queen. She was no savior, and he was not evil.

Opportunistic, perhaps. But Zelena had met true evil, now. She had watched Rumplestiltskin in the mirror, playing parties against each other until no one realized what his intentions were in the first place.

She blinked, and she smiled, slow and wide.

“You’ve given me an idea,” she told Walsh. He squawked that _of course_ he had, because he was smart, and Zelena was smart even if she was a bitch who didn’t understand _shit_. “Now, now, don’t be rude. If you’re good, I’ll let you watch.”

Her choice was just a bit player, really. Just a peasant whose family was already in Sherwood, who had had the misfortune of being caught by King George’s army. He could barely grow a beard, and she almost felt sorry for him. Traitor he may be, but he was young. He could almost be forgiven for running from the tense situation that the kingdom had found itself in.

Almost.

As Zelena understood it, the organ she was holding in her hands was not his physical heart. It was his soul, for the lack of a better term, bruised and battered in her hand. So long as she held it, he was under her control.

It was a lovely thing, really, the ability to stand outside Sherwood and watch the man pass through the wards without any alarms going off in those bloody sentient trees. He had forgotten that Zelena had taken his heart, of course, and he was no soldier. She doubted that one of her husband’s men could have passed through the wards, even if she had held his heart in her hand. They were already enemies of _Sherwood_.

She put the man’s heart in a box, watching through the Mirror as he hugged his family. He didn’t seem to change, and she smiled.

“I believe we have a solution,” she said, and the generals around her grinned.

They could only send in a few people, captured traitors who would have died anyway, but even ten people inside those wards would be enough. They didn’t remember a thing about their imprisonment, or that they were there under _her_ orders, and it was subtle enough that the forest didn’t recognize the threat they posed, positioned throughout the area.

“It will have to be at the last moment,” King George said. “Otherwise the unnatural forest spirits might kill our assassin. You’ve done well. I wish more people in my army were as ruthless as you are.”

She felt no pride at his praise. _She_ knew that she had done well, and she had already known that killing Regina would be difficult. The woman was surrounded by people all the time, and that pixie might have powers that they hadn’t anticipated. She had told King George all of this, and his face had gone stormy, but not at her.

“Perhaps we should send an assassin after both of them,” he suggested.

“It wouldn’t work,” she said, shaking her head and forcing any irritation at his idiocy out of her voice. “Whatever made this _pixie_ may not have changed her basic biology, and fairies are the most difficult beings in the Enchanted Forest to kill, after ogres. Besides, Regina is the _Guardian_.”

They both sneered at that title.

“Whenever she is most vulnerable, then,” he said. “The man will strike, and the wards will fall. Then our soldiers will be able to reclaim our territory, and we will be able to focus on domestic matters.”

All of Zelena’s people found themselves near Regina, for one reason or another. She watched through the Mirror, ready to take a heart and issue a command, but she was truly _never alone_. Weeks passed, and Zelena thought that she might have to take her chances and try to catch Regina as she went to sleep. The older generals advised against this, though, and told her to be patient. They had given her respect grudgingly, with much tutting about a _woman_ in command, but they _did_ respect her.

“They’re in there. We have to make sure they have the best shot.”

Zelena was as watchful as she could be. She had to sleep, and she never watched while Regina fucked her husband.

Then it was as if the stars aligned, and Zelena grabbed hold of a heart, _take a knife with you_ a silent command. He took it, no threat to Sherwood; there were knives everywhere, even if they were made of bone and _rocks_.

It was perfect. She watched the knife’s arc toward Regina, who had turned away to pull out the cup of wine necessary for this hand fasting. It gleamed with bright white light, reflecting the sun, its purpose exactly what she wanted it to be.

But it didn’t touch Regina. Instead, it buried itself in that man’s neck, in _Henry_ - _Enrique’s_ neck, as he pushed his daughter out of the way.

The forest screamed.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Regina stared at the man, pinned with branches to the tree – Johannes, that was his name, and his fiancée was staring at him in horror too. There was blood on Regina’s hands, and she cradled her father’s head in her lap, where the blood was pouring out of him too fast for Regina to heal. Tears were streaming from her eyes, because even though her father’s heart was still beating, he didn’t respond to her. His eyes wouldn’t focus, and she let out another sob.

He was dead already. His body just didn’t realize that it was too late to save him.

He’d _died for her_.

“Why?” she gasped, and the wind picked up. Sherwood responded to her grief, to her rage and helplessness, and she couldn’t find it in her to calm herself. “ _Why?_ ”

Johannes shook his head.

“I don’t know, I swear, I don’t _know_!” His face was pale, paler than it should have been, and he was a murderer, a liar and a coward who had tried to kill her while her back was turned. Her daddy, her papi, was dead because of _him_. Rage filled her to the brim, and she stood, gentle with her father’s body, striding towards him with all the darkness that she’d thought she’d left behind coiled like a striking cobra.

She shoved her hand inside his chest, intending to crush his heart then and there, but—

She staggered back.

“You’re heartless,” she whispered. “Oh, gods. _Zelena_.”

Her sister had done this. She had tried to kill Regina, and she’d used this man to do it. And if she’d gotten one man past the barrier, then she had other agents, others who were heartless, their wills shattered without _any_ knowledge of it, in Sherwood.

She closed her eyes and let her tears fall.

“Every Guardian can add one law that protects Sherwood,” she said, and she felt the air calm around her. She didn’t know if the others were doing damage, if Zelena had recovered from the shock of not killing Regina like she’d wanted to, but this was more important. “I’m going to add mine now. People who are heartless will never enter Sherwood. They are a threat to Sherwood even if they don’t realize it.”

Johannes gasped, but it wasn’t just Sherwood’s magic. Zelena was crushing his heart.

Regina wished she were kind enough to feel sorry for him.

She turned away.

Nine more people died before Sherwood could shove them outside the barrier. Zelena was thorough, she would give her that. Regina cradled her father’s head in her lap, cleaned up the blood that stained his face. The fiancée disappeared, sobbing in someone else’s arms. Robin managed to pull her away from her father’s body, took her to the hot springs that were something like a bathing house. In the chill air of autumn, the heat was a shock.

She shook her head, and the tears wouldn’t come anymore. She was staring at a rock, and perhaps she’d been staring at that same rock for hours, but she had no idea if this were true. Her skin was pink with heat, and Robin was washing her hair, had unbound it at some point that she couldn’t remember.

Her breaths were hard and harsh, and he was shushing her, soft with hands that could kill, and her fingers puckered in the steam, her calluses from riding and from training with her sword strange to look at when they were soaked in water.

“We have to arrange funerals,” she said, and thank the gods that her voice wasn’t rough or teary. “For my father, and for the others. Zelena sent them because they weren’t threats. They just wanted to be with their families. Using them as if they were tools was her decision, not theirs, and that has to – we need to acknowledge that. For their families’ sakes, if nothing else.”

“Okay.” Robin pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Okay.”

The funerals were the worst part. She had to explain to the families, those helpless people, that Zelena had taken the hearts from their loved ones’ chests. She had to explain how it worked, how she could even make them forget that they had been captured with dark magic. She had to watch them crumble, but she couldn’t crumble herself.

There was a field that they dedicated to the dead. Her father wasn’t buried there; she was selfish in that choice, perhaps, but she buried him in another field, alone except for her family. She didn’t cry.

She didn’t know if she had any tears left.


	13. Chapter Twelve

In the house that was just large enough for Zelena to feel powerful, even with the gaping hole in her that Rumplestiltskin had promised her all those years ago, she and Walsh watched the townspeople change.

Oh, they lived their days as if nothing had changed except the weather, but underneath the surface, they were changing. Bloody Gepetto and Jiminy Cricket walked down the street, chatting like they were old friends (which they were, but _they_ hadn’t known that). Snow White and her false prince and Princess Abigail and Sir Frederick had stiff dinners, _talking things out_ , they called it. _Belle_ and Cinderella with her baby were making amends between the latter and Rumplestiltskin.

“One woman is doing _all_ of this,” she muttered, and Walsh handed her a glass of hard cider. She smiled over at him, the one balm that had managed to soothe her pains for twenty-eight years, ever since he had rung her doorbell and scowled at her like the old days. She had forgotten to give him anything other than a name, because at the time, she had been busy running King George around her finger again and again, promising him things that he _believed_.

“Well, one woman did _start_ all of this,” he said. He touched his glass to hers. “Boy am I glad that I wasn’t the thing you loved most back then.”

He had stopped adding _or now_ five years ago to the day, and she knew it despite the fact that they were supposedly frozen in time. She had stopped him, something empty filled with a promise that was in the way his grin had turned into a smirk under her hand.

She was glad, too, but all of her work was coming undone. If Emma Swan broke the curse, if everyone remembered who had tortured them for a decade and then for another three, they would come after her. They would come after her in a mob, and this land had no magic. Hells, until Swan had come into their lives, no one without memories had _thought_ of the outside world. It was amazing, how just one city was on everyone’s lips these days.

“I believe my sister remembers now,” she said. She had gone down to the crypt and found one of the chests empty – the only chest that had brought a heart along with it. She had been watching the Sheriff’s office since then, and Graham seemed lighter, _freer_ than he’d been when they’d first arrived. Her sister had shown few outward changes, bickering with Emma Swan about playdates and ten-year-old boy things, but there was only one person other than she who had enough raw power left over from the Enchanted Forest and the inclination to use _magic_ on a _heart_.

But there had been a change in her. When she looked at Zelena now, smiling came more easily. There was no fear, no guilt over the “father” that had kept Zelena away in this reality. There was no bloodlust, either, which was confusing at best.

“She hasn’t tried to kill you?” Walsh asked. Zelena shrugged, setting her drink on the silver furnishings that decorated their home, an accent to the greens that Walsh had laughed at. “Not to be putting too blunt of a spin on it, but she wanted you dead the last time you saw her. Unless that was all an act too.” He joined her on the sofa, careful of her boundaries even now. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, a finger running over the rim of his glass.

Sometimes she still wondered if he was playing her false, like she was an instrument. That was the darkness, which forgot about those days in the beginning, where he treated her presence in his life, in _this life_ , as a chore and a burden. Coming up with documents for him in _those_ times had been simple enough, and the curse had still been malleable enough to make their living arrangements plausible and quite honorable. He had scoffed at the bands on their fingers, muttering about Zelena’s taste in jewelry. They had avoided each other like the plague, as they said here. They both had knowledge of how this world worked but nothing else, save their own memories.

Their memories were unpleasant, to say the least.

“She did warn me that Rumplestiltskin would remember, after I left the castle,” she said. “She claimed utterly ridiculous nonsense beforehand, most likely as a diversionary tactic, mixed truth in with lies, etcetera, but I could never be sure with her. She was like Cora that way.” She grinned, and Walsh raised his eyebrows. She turned to him. “She still thinks that Cora is alive. She must be out of her wits about her precious little Henry.”

She had known, of course, that the pirate wouldn’t be able to stand against Cora. By the time that he had brought her back, she’d found what she had been looking for.

Crushing _that_ heart to dust hadn’t filled her with anything but glee. The pirate had expected the same, probably, but Zelena had sent him on his way. Really, Cora could manipulate a man in half a minute, even less. Zelena had seen no man, not even Rumplestiltskin, able to deal with her properly.

Walsh snorted into his drink. It wasn’t calculated, too embarrassing for his tastes, too disgusting for hers. It was simply a part of him that he couldn’t control, which she rather liked, seeing as she couldn’t turn him into a flying monkey anymore.

He did sober, though.

“If she knows, and the curse breaks, or at least as much as Rumplestiltskin _wants_ it to break, there’s going to be immediate backlash. They’ll want your head on a platter, even if they don’t know a thing about me.”

“They’ll probably think I’ve been _raping_ you for twenty-eight years,” she snarled. “The ones without magic, at least.”

“Could be an advantage,” he said. “If it comes to that.”

She shook her head. A false double-cross wouldn’t work; it may be a triple-cross _now_ , but Walsh was a free man. He had been long before Regina shattered her pendant, but he needn’t know that. Walsh, like herself, like _Regina_ , was a survivor. He could adapt to a situation in moments, sometimes more quickly than Zelena could. If he decided she was too much baggage in this new world, he would throw her away; that was why she loved him.

“If the curse breaks, the fairies will notice. Snow White might not, but Regina most definitely will, and that miserable lot actually trusts her, despite her allegiances.”

Whatever she could say about her sister – and there was plenty, _traitor_ the least of her faults – her line in the sand had never wavered, not even for revenge on Rumplestiltskin. She belonged to Sherwood, and though they would take in refugees, provide aid to the sick and shelter the wrongly accused, they never went to war. Even after Zelena had given her late husband a new kingdom, she had remained unchanged. Hells, she hadn’t even gone to war after Zelena gave Snow the bloody _apple_ , insisting that war was not their way. She hadn’t refused the groups of men who’d gone to the battlefield and come back after the victory either, though.

It was cruel, but necessary.

Possibly that was an inherited trait. Even when Cora had _had_ a heart, she had known how to act, how to behave. There hadn’t been a person in the realm with knowledge that she had _actually_ given birth to a child, not even that _Eva_ , when she was sent into a tower to spin straw into gold. Not even Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One himself, had known that he couldn’t sense a firstborn because she was in another realm entirely.

She still hated the bastard for that, and couldn’t help but love her mother for what she had done for her. It hadn’t stopped her from killing her, because what had happened _afterward_ , sending Zelena _back_ to that bloody hellhole, was unforgiveable.

Perhaps she had learned something that Regina had already known about Cora, in the past decades of mundanity. She’d never admit it, and it made her skin crawl to even think that her bloody traitor of a sister had had a point after all, but Cora had abandoned her even when she _had_ a heart.

Abandoned for ambition. There were worse things, but she was unsure if she could forgive it when it was _her_ abandonment. She hadn’t forgiven Regina for giving her the memory of it, after all.

“So how do we make sure that doesn’t happen?” Walsh asked.

Zelena smiled.

It was lovely when a plan came together.

* * *

“Why didn’t you let Nolan remember?” Regina found herself asking Belle while Emma and Henry went out for ice cream and probably more talk about the Enchanted Forest. She was flipping through the pages of the book, reading up on magic from Oz that she’d learned firsthand so long ago; gods, even without twenty-eight years, it was a distant memory.

Belle made a face. It wasn’t the guilty face she’d worn when Rumplestiltskin talked about his vial of true love that was back in the Enchanted Forest, and Regina _was_ going to make her talk about that. Now, though, she wondered why Belle, who hadn’t even been _of_ Sherwood, had kept a valiant king in the dark. She could understand why Gold wouldn’t want him to remember, but Belle was closer to the royals than Regina had ever been.

“You remember when Zelena interrupted the wedding, and Charming threw his sword at her _after_ you’d shielded everyone?” She sighed. “Besides, if he remembered, he’d want to tell everyone. Your Henry gets that from him. No one else in his family tree is so persistent about the truth, and you know it.”

The bell above the door to the library chimed, and Regina found herself turning to see – a stranger.

Which was impossible. The curse hadn’t brought Storybrooke _into_ this realm, per se; it had been detached from the Enchanted Forest, but it hadn’t been fully attached to – well, to this _realm_. Emma had been born in the Enchanted Forest, and Henry was her son. He was caught between realms just like they were, though his was a case of being _part_ of both instead of what they were.

So there was only one explanation for the identity of the man who stepped into the library. Regina looked him up and down, only half lying in her appreciation for his attractiveness. The hair was shorter, and he was much taller, but she knew those eyes. She’d last seen them, terrified but determined, disappearing behind magical doors.

“Hi,” Pinocchio said. “I’m August. I was hoping you’d have a reference book I’ve been looking for.”

Right. He hadn’t _been_ at that council meeting.

She smiled at him.

“Careful. Your nose might start to grow if you keep say things like that here, dear.”

She watched the color drain from his face, her mouth twitched up at the corner. He recovered quickly, though. He smiled at her.

“Not lying. They gave me an ID and everything, even a birth certificate. They didn’t know my birthday, but to be fair, I have two of those. All they knew was that I was seven, apparently. How do you remember? I figured Gold would, but you’re not part of the curse.” His eyes passed her, and they landed on the book. “And that would be the reference book I’ve been looking for.”

Regina rolled her eyes.

“Well, _August_ , there’s a story behind that. Just like I’m sure there’s a story as to why Emma’s been alone all these years.” It could have been the system separating them, of course; August had been older, more likely to be put in a group home. But Emma had told her about a foster brother at her first home, where she got her last name. They’d been planning on adopting both of them, but – just like magic – the mother’s infertility had disappeared, and they’d both been sent to a group home.

After that, this mysterious foster brother disappeared from Emma’s stories.

His face fell.

“I’m confused,” Belle said. “What exactly are you two talking about? _Pinocchio_? You were just a child when I saw you last.”

“His father was afraid that he’d be turned back into wood if he was put under the curse, so he and the Blue Fairy came to an arrangement before presenting the tree to the court. They didn’t realize that Snow White was farther along in her pregnancy than they thought, since they didn’t realize that she and Charming had already been married – the woman who comes in here for the classics, Caroline Sheppard, she’s his mother, and she and I were the only witnesses to that one. The guy who runs the club, Hawthorne’s? Lancelot du Lac, he officiated the ceremony. Everyone agreed that there needed to be a public wedding after the war, though.”

Belle made a choked sound in her throat. She was probably thinking about how Lancelot – Andrew Steel – flirted with anything that moved, and was sort of, well, an ass. Only Mary Margaret could get him to be halfway decent, which was just like Snow White, when Regina thought about their pasts.

“I’m here now,” he said. “I have a lot to atone for, and I don’t have a lot of time. I woke up a few days ago, and my left pinkie toe was wood. I’m dying. I need to get Emma to believe.”

“You know, even if the curse breaks…”

He nodded.

A plan was taking shape in Regina’s mind, though, and she smiled at him.

Emma would remember. She just needed a push in the right direction.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

It took her three months to make the potion. The ingredients were hard to come by, and she had to trade magical services for most of them, but by the time Amber had started babbling in earnest, communicating with everyone with her words and her magic, she had a memory potion finished. She was hurting, but she didn’t lash out at people. She interacted with Amber, and sometimes that was the only bright point in her day. Her magic was warm and bright and beautiful. She was family.

So was Zelena. She deserved to know that.

There was no army outside their borders now. Zelena was still there, waiting for her, the day that Regina slipped out of her home hours before dawn and made the trek through the forest alone. She couldn’t cross the barrier, and Regina looked at her in the early morning light.

Regina’s hair was loose, and Zelena’s was done up in a crown of braids. Regina wore breeches and had a sword at her side, and Zelena’s dress was formed for anything but battle. Regina had inherited Cora’s eyes where Zelena’s were bright blue against her green skin, but the expression on her face was every inch their mother.

Regina was crying. They had lost so much because of Cora, both of them.

“Is this the part where you try to reunite with me through some pretty little memory?” Zelena asked, mocking in every inch of her body. But she wasn’t Cora, and there was hunger in her eyes that she couldn’t disguise. “I prefer the one where you weep over a pathetic corpse, myself. It was almost as satisfying as killing you will be.”

She took in that information, even through the ache in her chest. Zelena could watch them, even with all of Sherwood’s protections in place.

“You want what I have, what you think you don’t – love. But I love you, Zelena. And you deserve to know why that will never change.” She walked to the barrier, kneeling at its edge – like she was praying, like she was praying to _Zelena_ , or for her. She put the potion on the ground outside the barrier, almost expecting Zelena to grab her hand and try to pull her out. She didn’t touch her, and the dark bottle rested between them.

Regina backed away, because Zelena wouldn’t touch the potion if Regina was close enough to draw her sword. She didn’t kneel, just pulled it into her hand with a puff of green magic. She stared at Regina while she opened it and drank its contents, the pendant at her throat glittering in the light.

She saw the memory fit itself into Zelena’s mind, a brief moment of happiness for two miserable little girls. She _saw_ its effect on her.

Zelena laughed, loud and piercing. Regina closed her eyes and let the tears fall.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Zelena said, and Regina’s eyes snapped open. She was smiling, but it wasn’t kind. “I saved your life, and I will take it away. It sounds fair to me. What about you?”

“What did I ever do to you?” It was a whisper. She could barely form the words around her choking tears.

Zelena still answered her.

“You were born.”

She disappeared in a cloud of green, and Regina wiped the tears from her eyes. She let herself have one more moment of pain, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. Zelena would be watching her, after all.

“I will always be your sister. I will always love you. If you try to kill me again, if you target my family, I will destroy you despite that. I’ll hate myself for doing it, but it won’t stop me.”

There was a sound, and Regina’s sword was out of its sheath, magic gathered around her in an instant. Rumplestiltskin raised an eyebrow at the sword, grinning like a fiend. He giggled, high and bright like a boy, not the old man that he was.

“Sisters, sisters, always so _melodramatic_!” he tittered.

He was in Sherwood, but there was nothing in her mind or in the trees, no warning bells – but it wouldn’t matter if there were, would it? The Dark One was something different. He didn’t really exist in this space and time, always fifty moves ahead of everyone else. The only time he hadn’t been, she supposed, was when her mother decided that her own ambitions were more important than his. He had been fooled by the separation between the realms for a critical instant, but even then, he kept to his deals.

“She’s watching this, you know,” Regina said, sheathing her sword. He rolled his flat eyes, and a strange blanket of magic fell over their heads with a sudden storm. “I felt that melodrama would be appropriate, given the circumstances. What do you want?”

“Ah, I was wondering whether you were emulating your mother on purpose,” he said, bowing with a flourish. “Come, dearie, I have a proposition for you. A deal, if you will. Trust me, this one? You really want to take.” He tittered. “Circles and circles, that’s what time is all about. At least for now. We go back to the beginning, and that tells us the end. It always has.”

She let out a sigh. He hadn’t been this strange while he taught her, but she could almost understand, after a proper meeting with Zelena. She _craved_ what Regina had hated, and she was impatient in ways that were surprising for anyone related to Cora. It would be driving him up a wall with irritation. She took his arm with all the elegance that had been trained into her.

“The details of this deal?” she asked. They traced her path back through Sherwood with their steps. The storm followed them, and she wondered if Zelena would suspect Rumplestiltskin’s interference. No one ever seemed to.

She truly didn’t understand that. She had seen the hunger in his eyes, and it had matched her own. Daniel’s ring, a memory on her right hand, was heavy in this moment. Rumplestiltskin was evil, and dark, and nothing but loss could have made him so strange. The tantalizing promise of a curse, of revenge, that he had hinted at before Tink saved her, that was _his_.

“Snow White’s life.” He actually laughed at her when she turned a bewildered stare on him. “I didn’t say I would _kill_ her. As I said, this goes back to the beginning. Zelena is your half-sister, you understand, and was sent to Oz by your mother’s untrained magic and her own raw power. Queen Eva – then Princess Eva – learned of your mother’s illegitimate pregnancy and prevented her from marrying Prince Leopold.”

Regina drew up short. Rumplestiltskin grinned at her and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Your mother was quite cross, of course, and ensured the Queen’s demise. Poor Snow White was given a choice, to let her mother die or to kill another. She truly is pure as snow, which your mother and Eva understood. No guile in her at all. Yet. And she _will_ need it to survive.”

There were a thousand questions in Regina’s mind, but they were unimportant.

“You haven’t mentioned anything relevant to a deal, and you know that magic like this won’t be tolerated for long.” She glanced up at the storm, which was already sending warnings through her. “I suggest you hurry.”

“Ah, yes, of course. I will need a favor – no clue what it concerns, which concerns _me_.” He giggled at his little play on words. She rolled her eyes. “Snow White’s life will be in danger again, and no place will be safe from Zelena’s magic by then.” He stooped and picked up two twigs. “This one for her, and this one for me. I cannot enchant them to bring their users to you, of course.” _Only you can do that_.

It went unsaid.

She had no idea who would use this second twig, or why, or when. But Snow White…

Once, she had been a child who only wanted someone to love her. All she had ever wanted was a mother, and Regina could never be that. She had hated her, and she had forgiven her, and she didn’t know if she could ever love her.

She would still protect her.

She took the twigs and breathed magic over them. It was the only steady thing in this storm, pale as fog.

“They have to be snapped in order to work,” she said. “If Snow White dies, the second will not work. Understood?”

“Of course!”

Then he was gone, the sticks and storm with him. She continued her walk home, the headache receding while Sherwood’s magic healed itself. Robin greeted her with a kiss and no questions as to where she’d been; he already knew. Amber toddled over to her, her cheeks puffed out while she described the storm, using more magic than words. Regina nodded, kissing her on the top of her head.

Another winter passed, summer and autumn and winter and spring. Teaching Amber was an unexpected joy, and Sherwood prospered. Regina learned how to make healing potions, and she actually helped a few of their women during their labors. She also learned how to use a sword and magic at the same time, and she sometimes forgot that Zelena could see her at any time.

Marian fell ill three times, and it took more energy than Regina had thought she _had_ to heal her. Finally, when summer was settling in, hot and wet, Tinker Bell explained what caused the illness.

“There’s a trade, you know.” She laughed in a way that meant that this wasn’t funny at all. “Fairy dust, it’s mined, and every year they collect it from the diamond dust that has magical energy. Pixie dust is grown. It lives in the trees, and it spreads from tree to tree to tree, and its magic, well, you’ve seen the strange creatures, the flying ones, what happens to them if they touch the barrier. It’s lethal.” Her body shifted, sharpening into the inhuman being that they had believed she would _become_ in the beginning.

They were alone, and Regina expected Tinker Bell to say that she was killing Marian, that she was somehow draining her life from her. It would make sense.

“It lives, and it dies. Before that, though, it… spreads.” Her human-like form flushed deep pink. “Procreates, if you will. And so, so I can, well, _I_ can’t, for some reason, no clue why, but we, well, we tried. But even with pixie dust, she doesn’t have enough magic, because there aren’t enough pixies to support her.”

“Oh.” Regina blinked. “You should have said that they were miscarriages. It would have been easier to – well, there are ways, you know. It would have been safer.”

Tink’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded.

“I know, I know, but we just – we _hoped_. Every time, we hoped that it wouldn’t be like the last time, but after this time – I _can’t_ anymore. It’s an odd process, and apparently sentient as well, because her body refused the magic. It knows that this will kill her. My baby would kill her.” She descended into sobs, and Regina held her up. She hated that Zelena could see this, that she was probably laughing at them.

She closed her eyes.

“The baby, it feeds on magical energy?” she asked, and Tink nodded against her shoulder. “Would – would it be yours and Marian’s, even if it weren’t Marian’s womb carrying it?”

That got her a look, concerned and then bright with hope, and Tinker Bell nodded. Regina’s breath shuddered through her, and she thought about Amber, the way she’d loved her so much even before she was born. She could imagine what Marian was feeling, though.

“I _will_ have to talk to Robin,” she said. “We haven’t been trying, mostly because Amber’s magic is strong enough that we agree waiting is the best idea, just in case the next baby is as intuitive with magic as she is. We’ve both been taking potions. And you’ll have to speak with Marian as well.”

“Thank you, Regina. Thank you so much.” Tinker Bell hugged her tight, and they floated off of the ground for a few moments. Their feet touched the ground, magic light as air around them.

It was so much like that first time, when she had been so dark with anger and despair, and yet it was nothing like that at all. They were both free.

The discussion with Robin was short, mostly because Marian had already confided in _him_ about hers and Tinker Bell’s attempts to conceive. Regina didn’t yell at him, but it was a close thing. He and Marian were almost as close as he and Little John; he kept her secrets, just like Regina kept Tinker Bell’s.

There were rules they established before the conception. Regina and Marian were going to spend more time together; everyone in Sherwood would know that this baby was Marian’s and Tinker Bell’s; no one would talk about the baby as if it were Regina’s; Tinker Bell was not allowed to cry more than once a day; Regina was allowed to cry as much as she wanted, as was Marian; Regina and Robin would be the baby’s godparents.

She protested that rule, but Tinker Bell insisted, since she and Marian were Amber’s godparents. It made Regina’s throat tight with worry, because she didn’t want to get attached, not to a baby that wouldn’t even be her blood.

But Amber wasn’t Tink’s blood, and if anything happened to Regina or Robin _she_ would step in to help, along with Marian. It was a small comfort, but it comforted her nonetheless.

“ _Odd process_ ,” Regina echoed, the day they decided to finally stop putting it off. “Everything is _glowing_.”

They were in the tree home that Tinker Bell and Marian had claimed. Robin wasn’t there, and Regina was distinctly uncomfortable. Unlike their home, which was mostly on the ground, Marian and Tinker Bell’s living space was high in the air, like a bird’s nest. There were _stairs_ , which had never failed to surprise Regina. Trees shouldn’t have stairs, but this one did.

And everything was glowing. Pixie dust was everywhere, shaping itself around Tinker Bell and Marian’s joined hands. The glow concentrated between them, and Regina looked away. This was a private moment; it was their moment, and it was their last chance. They’d agreed on that too.

“Okay, this will feel strange at first.” Tinker Bell approached, holding a _glowing ball of light_. Regina prayed to the gods that the pregnancy would be normal after today. She wasn’t sure if they were listening, but it never hurt.

The light was cold, and Regina’s whole body shivered with it. It was an impression; it was magic, soaring high over a town, pixie dust, pixie magic pointing at what-would-be. It was demanding, and Regina understood why Marian’s body would have rejected it. There was hunger in it like Regina had _never_ known. It was Marian’s, a memory, barely a physical presence at all.

The light faded, and Regina looked up at Tinker Bell.

“Did it work?” she asked. She felt more exposed than when she’d been _giving birth_.

Tinker Bell nodded. Then she burst into loud, messy tears.

This pregnancy was _nothing_ like her previous experience. Possibly because she was carrying a pixie child, or possibly because her body recognized that it was carrying something completely foreign to it, her morning sickness was constant and _annoying_. Marian was her shadow, and they tried to find some common ground that wasn’t Tinker Bell, Robin, or the situation they’d found themselves in.

“I didn’t realize you were so committed to gardening,” Marian said. “Where do you find the time?”

Regina, pruning grape leaves because she might be exhausted, but dammit, when she’d given birth to her godchild, she was going to need wine, cocked her head. Her schedule was regularly interrupted by important business, mostly to do with the war that was raging _around_ them. She couldn’t give Amber magic lessons anymore, though, which took up a significant portion of her time, and everyone needed food and drink.

“I’ve always been able to steal a few minutes out of the day,” she said. She thought about Daniel, and this time it made her smile. “Gardening is permanent. It never stops. That tree over there isn’t going to bear fruit for another two or three years, but even now I have to make sure it grows the right way. Even the grapes and the berries take some time out of every day.”

“It’s _constant_ ,” Marian said. Regina nodded, smiling at her. “Why do you cut the leaves?”

She taught Marian how to grow the best fruits. Marian taught her how to track animals.

“I’m a bit jealous of you, you know,” Marian said, when they were enjoying the spoils of their labors in the form of blackberries picked right off the vine. Regina nodded, and Marian actually laughed. “You knew?”

“You tried four times, and magic wouldn’t help you. One try with me, and I’ve passed the point you did in your longest pregnancy. I would be jealous too, even knowing who she’ll call Mother.” She was guessing that this baby would be a girl, but it made sense. Tinker Bell and Marian were both women, so they would probably have a girl child. She didn’t know everything about childbirth, but it seemed obvious.

“Tink doesn’t understand it,” Marian said. “I love her, but we seem to live in different worlds.”

Regina sighed. She couldn’t actually _use_ magic, or at least as much magic as she’d been used to using before the pregnancy, but she could still feel it. Sherwood was like the sturdiest trees in the forest, letting her lean on it while she did this huge, insane thing. Marian – most people, she amended – couldn’t feel this.

“You do,” she said. She had to be blunt. No one ever understood magic if she was subtle about it. Marian frowned at her. “I don’t know how much Tinker Bell told you about the time between her being a fairy and a pixie, but she described it to me as the world going flat. And I understood what she meant. The first time I used magic consciously, it was like I’d been staring at a painting all my life, and then everything was real. Tinker Bell always had that, and more. She isn’t human, even if she’ll live and age and die like we do.”

This earned her a grin.

Marian didn’t ask Regina what magic was like. She wasn’t afraid of it, but she accepted it like she accepted Regina’s preference for a sword over a bow. She saw it as an inclination towards different styles of living, and maybe she was right. Regina had always had magic, but when she’d hated it, she couldn’t have used it.

Autumn and winter passed, and during that time the baby decided that once it started moving it was never going to stop.

“Well, we know she’s Tink’s, then,” Marian said, her hand high on Regina’s stomach. The baby was kicking where Regina’s skin met Marian’s, almost like she was saying hello half a dozen times. “Always moving.”

“I’ve seen you at festivals,” Regina managed. “She gets it from both of you. You just manage to contain it more easily than Tinker Bell does. Gods, how does she still have _room_ to move so much?” She shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. She missed being able to use magic.

“Does it truly feel horrible?” Marian asked. Regina winced.

“Not at first. At first it’s like bubbles, barely there. Then… you’ve felt it from the outside. It’s similar, but stranger. It isn’t like touching your own skin. You know that what is happening is foreign. For some time, it’s a pleasant sensation. Then you feel something inside you squeezing because of how it’s moved, and suddenly you have to go to the bathroom immediately. It’s almost like you’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with you, but much stronger. Then, yes, it becomes unpleasant. And then you go into labor, which is worse.”

“So she’ll be here soon?” That was panic.

Regina nodded.

“It should be a few weeks, but yes. She’s settling, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

Marian promptly put her head between her knees, her hand abandoning Regina’s stomach. The baby gave a dispassionate kick.

“Oh, gods, I’m going to be a mother.”

Regina patted her on the back. There was really no response she could give to that.

The baby took its own time to come, and Regina endured the painful process again. When the baby came out, squawking indignantly at the world, Marian sobbed into Tinker Bell’s shoulder. She was smaller than Amber had been, and her skin was as dark as Marian’s.

It was easy to let her go. That was what made Regina cry, in the end.

“Amethyst Bell,” Marian said.

“I like it, and I love her. She’s so beautiful. Marian, she looks just like you,” Tinker Bell said. “I love you.”

Magic was filling Regina up again, and she went home to curl around her child and her husband and have a peaceful day. There weren’t going to be many of those left.

Amber declared that the baby was weird, but that Amethyst was an interesting name, and then she refused to call her anything but Ames.

“I want a little sister,” she said, precocious in the way that only young children _could_ be.

Robin and Regina laughed at her. She scowled at them.

“Maybe in a year or two we’ll discuss that,” Regina said.

“And you’d like having a little brother more, I bet,” Robin added. “When the time comes, of course.”

Regina stopped pinching him, and then she went to sleep.

They deserved a little respite. She could feel magic in the air, and it promised terrible things. She would have to deal with them. She always did.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

“Annabelle,” Robin offered.

Regina made a face. He laughed, twining their fingers together and pressing his lips together in a parody of a frown. Regina, sick and tired, couldn’t help but smile at him. He was always so _happy_ , and she wondered if that was why he’d called his team of bandits the Merry Men.

“It’s a boy,” she said. “Neither girl gave me this sort of trouble.”

Two years of peace had gone by – well, peace in Sherwood. The war between King George and King Leopold had raged around them in the meantime, and there were rumors that a witch had compelled half of their forces to fight, and their army depended on winning battles to eat food. Their citizens were poor, and executions were common. Only the people on the furthest northern borders eked out a living, most of them shepherds.

Leopold’s kingdom wasn’t doing much better, and they had no magic to help them fight.

But Sherwood was at peace. She had a duty to the people of Sherwood, and she fulfilled that duty to the best of her ability. She couldn’t – she couldn’t send soldiers to die or lose their hearts, not when they had families. The Merry Men had the right to go out, but she _wasn’t_ going to be responsible for more death.

Sometimes, like now, she could control the ache inside when she thought like that.

“Roland Daniel Hood,” Robin said, and Regina stared at him. He smiled at her. “I know that your heart and mine are as one, Regina, but that doesn’t mean that you have to forget who held it first.”

So she was kissing him when Snow White appeared in the clearing, crying. It was the _worst_ way to find out that her first husband was dead, honestly.

After Snow White stopped babbling nonsense about some huntsman who let her go – and Regina knew that that sort of man _never_ let prey get away – she set her down with a cup of tea that Regina couldn’t touch. She was past the point in pregnancy where she could blame it on morning sickness, and yet that was what it most resembled. It was _annoying_.

“You have a daughter?” Snow White asked, because Amber had chosen now of all times to be curious about the sorts of people who took refuge in Sherwood. She was watching them from behind a tree, and Regina didn’t bother looking at her. “I mean, I knew, of course, that the _Guardian_ had a daughter, but I never knew that was you. I – it’s good to see you?”

That shouldn’t have been a question. Regina smiled and took Snow White’s hand. She truly wished that she could have been an influence on this girl, if not her mother in truth – she desperately needed training in how to deal with nobles, even nobles like Regina who preferred to think of themselves as servants of _everyone_. She would have known better than to talk about her daughter while she could hear them.

“I’m going to have a son in the spring too. And no, you never knew it was me. But I never meant for you to know who I was, not while you were already in danger from Zelena for being Eva’s daughter.”

Snow White furrowed her brow at her, and Regina couldn’t help but smile at her naïveté.

“Amber, come here,” she said. “I want you to meet an old friend.” She didn’t track Amber’s progress, but Snow White did. She had _some_ good instincts, at least. When Amber was close enough for Regina to see that she’d stained her dress at the knees _again_ , she nodded at Snow White. “This is Princess Snow White, of the late King Leopold’s realm. One day she’s going to be Queen.”

Amber, almost six, knew that people in other kingdoms were strange about royalty. She managed a decent curtsy as it was, and Regina watched Snow White manage to hide a smile behind her hand.

“I’m Amber, your highness,” she squeaked. This time Regina was the one who hid a smile.

“Well, you know, your mother used to be married to my father. I think that means you should call me Snow White, or just Snow, if you prefer.”

Amber nodded, which shook _pixie dust_ out of her curls. Regina held in her sigh. She scampered away before she told Snow White what she would call her, which meant that she hadn’t decided yet, though Snow would have to learn that herself.

“I’m glad that you’re happy, Regina,” Snow White said, and Regina couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. Maybe _she_ should remember her lessons, since she _knew_ that Zelena was watching them. She’d have to tell Snow about that, especially if she decided to stay here while she planned the best way to take Zelena and George off of her father’s throne. “I doubt I’m going to be queen of anything, though. Not with Zelena plotting against me.”

“She’s watching, you know.”

Snow White went pale as a sheet.

“She’s got some sort of way to watch me, and she does it constantly,” Regina explained. “I doubt she’s watching _right now_ , or we’d see her flying beasts circling above the protective barrier. It kills them if they get too close, or at least makes them… dissolve, if you will. I believe they go back to Zelena. She doesn’t waste anything. She’s just like our mother that way.”

“This is insane,” Snow White said, shaking her head. “How am I supposed to fight someone who can do that?” She looked at Regina with a plea in her eyes.

Regina squeezed her hand.

“By not being here, in the best case scenario. I can teach you how to use a sword like a woman and not like an imitation of a man, or the Merry Men can teach you how to use a bow, or a combination of both. You have some magic, too, that can be trained. It isn’t nearly as much as I have, but you would be able to sense certain dangers. After that, though… I will not fight a war. Not even your war. You’ll have an ally against Zelena, if it comes to a personal fight between the two of you, but I can’t send people out to die.”

Snow looked like she might cry, which Zelena hated. Then something in her, something of her mother’s, Regina was sure, came out, and there was steel in her eyes.

“Who’s the best archer you know who’d be willing to teach me?”

“My husband,” Regina said without hesitating. “He never misses, even with the bows I haven’t enchanted.” It was something about him that had to be magic, even if he never acknowledged it as such.

It took years, really, to learn to use a bow the way Robin could. It was easier for Snow White because she’d had archery lessons when she was young, like most nobles. Staff fighting, too, came easily, enough so that she didn’t need a sword. Her reach would be better with a staff anyway, and if it came to it, she was willing to put an arrow between a Black Knight’s shoulders.

She left before winter had set in fully, a handful of magic lessons under her belt and her own enchanted bow and a quiver that would never run out of arrows. When Regina had tiredly pounded it into her head that all magic came with a price, even simple fire-starting spells, she’d declared that she needed to learn how to do it properly anyway. That had led to a confrontation with Will, who wasn’t exactly the kindest of the Merry Men.

He’d deserved the tongue-lashing she’d given him. Regina wished that there was some way she could have recorded that, for posterity if for nothing else. She didn’t doubt that in other realms there were ways of doing so, but she lived in the Enchanted Forest, not in any of them.

Through it all there had been a sense of unease, as if the mere presence of Snow White, who should be a queen and an ally, made people want to fight. Regina wouldn’t deny them, of course, but she couldn’t exactly endorse their behavior. She _knew_ what Zelena and George did to those they considered traitors, and they had doubled their power when they took Leopold’s kingdom. It hadn’t made them less ruthless, or less determined to gain more.

She’d heard mumbles of Princess Abigail and some sort of betrothal arrangement. Midas’s kingdom was prosperous, powerful for that dark magic that he held, but the cost, other than his inability to touch a soul without killing them, was that other dark creatures were attracted to the power. There had been rumors that an actual dragon – not Queen Maleficent, who never left her castle so far as Regina knew – had taken up roasting innocent villagers. That was in addition to the hydra, the chimera, and six _ogres_ that had all been killed by Sir Frederick before his unfortunate demise.

That poor girl. Her first fiancé seemed to have been a good man. Prince James hadn’t improved with age, and George would never have married her himself, not if there was a possibility she could give birth to another heir.

Zelena wasn’t infertile, Regina assumed. They must have simply consummated the marriage and then stopped bedding each other entirely. That had been Leopold’s intention, she knew, but she had stopped him from embarrassing himself further when he could not. No one had checked her sheets, not when they knew that she had ridden horses since she was a child.

Before the wedding her mother had told her that if a man were truly careful and attentive, there would be no blood, but that _she_ should expect pain.

“Should we offer Princess Abigail refuge?” she asked Robin, when word got out that Midas had arranged for Prince James to kill the dragon and would most likely offer his daughter’s hand in exchange for its defeat. She had been right about Roland, of course, and he looked more like Regina’s father than anything else. Robin insisted, of course, that he looked like _her_ , but Regina didn’t see it.

“More likely James, considering what the woman does with the courtiers she dislikes,” Robin said. “At least according to Zora’s spies. Though I understand that you dislike the man and will not, of course.”

“He’s going to die badly,” Regina said, and Robin gave her a look. “It isn’t as if I _delight_ in it. I simply believe that he’s an idiot and that his father should have chastised him more thoroughly _before_ they needed Zelena and Rumplestiltskin. At least dragon fire is quick. I can’t imagine that he can defeat that menace.”

“My wife, always seeing the silver lining in the darkest of clouds.”

In early summer, word came that James _had_ defeated the dragon, and that he would marry Princess Abigail in a few weeks’ time. Zora’s spies were absolutely gleeful in their missives: apparently, _Prince_ James had died before the party had been sent to kill the dragon. The deal about Zelena hadn’t been the first time that Rumplestiltskin had played two sides at once, and he had a twin brother who was exactly as noble as he was not.

“I wonder what his name is,” Regina said at the Council meeting. “His true name. We could find his parents and shelter them; if he truly is noble, then he isn’t doing this for King George. His land has been ravaged by that man for some time, and it’s quite possible that the king is threatening them so that he will comply.”

“ _That_ man I could believe it of,” Tink said, a sneer on her face. “Executions have doubled, and I fear for those of us who have taken it upon themselves to leave Sherwood, even if only to gather information. I wish we could recall them.”

Regina could not admit that she wished the same, even though she did. It wouldn’t do for her to be seen as weak, not even here, so she didn’t even sigh. She left it to Marian to comfort Tink, and she trusted her to tell her that Regina wasn’t a cold monster. It ached inside, knowing that she had to present this front to her most trusted advisors.

“They have freedom,” she said instead. “It may mean death, but it is what they desire, what we desire for Sherwood to represent and respect. Without that, this is simply another cage.”

There were nods all around, and Robin squeezed her hand. Roland murmured in his sling, and Regina resisted the urge to _not_ smile. Everyone agreed that babies needed to be smiled at in order to understand the adults around them, even if it made no sense to Regina herself. When he smiled up at her, she smiled down at him. He was free, just as all of the people of Sherwood were free. Not all of them had her to protect them, though.

“What we need to do is end Zelena’s threat,” Robin said. “I know that magic has rules. Perhaps one of them may be used to stop her for good, or at least long enough to get her to a place where her magic may be neutralized.”

“Unfortunately, we know that she grew up in another realm altogether. It would have influenced how her magic works, and what rules it obeys. Usually squid ink will stop a magic-user cold, but I honestly do not know if it would work with her. Getting anyone close enough will be a problem – we’d only have one shot, and if it didn’t work, for whatever reason, she’d kill the person who attempted to stop her. It’s almost noon, though, so. How do _our_ people fare?”

Everyone was relieved to get their minds off of that unsolvable topic.

It would be months before Belle arrived with the answer.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

After life adventuring with Mulan and Prince Phillip, Sherwood Forest took some getting used to. But Belle was unsure what she would have done, had she not had the branch secured about her neck when Queen Zelena came for her. She remembered her visits to the castle, before Rumplestiltskin forbade her from ever coming near him again, and she knew what the woman would do to anyone who got in her way.

She was lucky to be alive. She was sleeping in a tree in Sherwood Forest, but she was _alive_ , and her eyes burned when she thought about Rumplestiltskin. He had loved her after all, even if they could not be together. She wished she could go to him, explain herself and—

Well, that was the thing. She half wanted to explain herself and her actions, and she half wanted to slap him about the face for sending her away _alone_. He’d given her a way to protect herself, and she hadn’t thrown it in the bloody river the first night away, but he had also made her go. She found that that she could _not_ forgive.

“He thinks you’re dead, you know,” Tinker Bell said, sitting over a bowl of some clear liquid that was _not_ water. The crystal hanging from her hand was probably a diamond, and it swung in a loose arc as she looked down. “He’s been beside himself, just like with his son. But he wasn’t a coward, not as much at least.”

Belle shook her head.

“I’ll have to take your word on that,” she said, and her voice came out in a near-hiss. She coughed, and Tink smiled up at her. “I’m sorry, I just – it’s like I was some sort of property to him, a bit of fancy lace edging that he lost on his way to market. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m sorry.” She held her head, which was aching, in both of her hands. A warm cup of tea was passed toward her, and she looked up at Regina, smiling like she knew what Belle meant.

“I understand,” she said. She was Queen Zelena’s _sister_ ; of course she understood what Belle felt like, even if she had a toddler on her hip. “Zelena was taught by Rumplestiltskin, and she’s always had this feeling that she needs his approval. Children who don’t get that tend to act out – isn’t that right, Roland?”

The chubby boy dangling from her arms grinned at them all. He was only just two, Belle knew, and he and his sister had six years between them. She’d heard about it from Rumplestiltskin, how the Guardian hadn’t been sure that peace would remain stable and had put off having more children. Now, though, she doubted that Regina would wait so long before she had more children dangling from her arms. She was good at it, and Belle wished for a moment that her kiss _had_ worked, that she and Rumplestiltskin could have had children together.

“Yes, well, having it taken out on you still isn’t fun,” Belle said. A brief, pained look flashed across Regina’s face. Belle winced. _That_ bit of gossip – about the ban on heartless men and women from Sherwood Forest because of what had happened to her father – had spread like wildfire. She’d just forgotten it in all the commotion of getting settled, after almost dying and all. “But I don’t think Rumplestiltskin was her first teacher. The… the pendant she wears? The green crystal acts as a sort of storage chamber and focus point for her magic, though in the books on Oz they tend to be clear. I suppose her magic is strong enough that an abrupt change in skin-color would have affected her magic as well.”

Regina sat down in front of Belle, between her and the scrying bowl – that was what it was, she remembered while she looked in Regina’s earnest brown eyes.

“Her magic is _stored_ in there?” Regina asked. “You mean, if we remove the pendant, she loses all of her power?”

Belle nodded.

“Yes. See, Oz fascinated me. It’s a whole other realm, you understand, so the rules of magic were different there. The Sisterhood of Witches each have a pendant, and it is said to hold their magic as well as an aspect of their personalities. If I had to guess, the reason the pendant went green is because Zelena had the pendant that depended on love. Possibly innocence, but they’re both dangerous when corrupted.”

“Innocence,” Tinker Bell said. “Light magic wouldn’t hurt her if she were simply carrying around corrupted _love_. That’s still light. Or at least it is here – might be different in other places, but I doubt it.”

Regina tapped her fingers upon her knee and let Roland down to play in the new growth. His sister Amber was somewhere nearby with the pixie girl Amethyst. The sound of laughter rang throughout the forest.

“Belle, what else do you know about Oz – well, actually, what do you know about these pendants?” she finally asked.

Belle breathed in, bringing the knowledge to the front of her mind. Sometimes she needed a reference to help her remember the exact details of a book, but the book on Oz had been so stunning and so _strange_ that she had read it more than once, poring over the pages when she had nothing to do. She had been horrified reading about the Sisterhood, to be quite honest.

“The pendants don’t just hold magic. If a witch dies, the pendant will bring her back to life. It holds a bit of her soul in it, along with her magic. Removing it is much like removing someone’s heart with magic. It gives you power over them, though this is less control and more manipulation. They know that if the pendant is destroyed, their power will be truly gone. Though no one has ever destroyed one of the pendants, so that might be wrong. It _could_ kill them, from what I know. And if Zelena _is_ weak to light magic, that will be the only way to remove the pendant.” She finished speaking and took a long drink of her tea. It was light and tart.

Regina took her free hand and squeezed it.

“If you are right, you have done Sherwood Forest, as well as the entire Enchanted Forest, a favor that we will never forget. Thank you, Belle. Thank you so much.”

Belle didn’t ask Regina if she was going to remove the pendant or destroy it. Somehow, she doubted she would like whatever answer she got.

* * *

Zelena was panicking, and she knew it.

Bloody Regina knew how to kill her, and she had gone and traded the Dark Curse away just when she might be able to _use it_. She looked down at the apple and scowled – the Blind Witch wanted it, too. Claimed that Zelena _owed_ her or some other trite nonsense.

“What the hell am I supposed to _do_?” she asked Walsh. When he didn’t speak, she contemplated snapping her fingers and setting him on fire, but he was a good servant, and good servants were on the list of things that she was not allowed to kill. That list included Prince Charming, too, even though he was campaigning against _her_ specifically, as well as King George. And thus, apple. It would crush his soul, and then he would die. She _knew_ how to get a proper revenge.

So did Regina.

“Get your mother,” Walsh finally said. Zelena blinked. “I think she’s the only person who is powerful enough to get past Sherwood’s wards. She isn’t going to be a threat, not until she chooses to be. I think, if you really want to kill your sister, you need to bring the Queen of Hearts to the Enchanted Forest.”

Zelena didn’t kiss him, but she imagined what it would be like, even if he refused her.

Instead, she just smiled.

* * *

The day after Zelena _didn’t_ die from the magical equivalent of a sword to the gut, Regina realized that her mother was in the Enchanted Forest. More, she was in _Sherwood_ , despite the fact that she didn’t have a heart of her own. She was carrying one in her bag, and all the blood drained from Regina’s face when she thought about how badly things could go if she got near Regina’s _children_.

Then she nearly fell down, because she was advanced in her pregnancy, though she wasn’t quite ready to give birth.

“There has to be a way to force her out,” she said, and Tink looked down at her bowls. Some of them were enchanted for scrying purposes, and some of them were made to be miniscule reflections of the mirror that Zelena could still use, dammit. Regina should have taken the pendant and gone. For one instant she’d let herself go, thinking that she could avenge her father, and it had ruined everything.

“There is,” she said. “Lake Nostos. It is the only way, and Snow White will be going that way.” She came back to herself and coughed. “I’ll protect the children while you’re away. There’s a cost, though, to this particular protection. It doesn’t – it doesn’t cover you. Or me. Unless you want it to only cover us, I mean, and not Sherwood. That’s the catch.”

“I’d do anything to keep my mother away from my children, and away from your daughter and wife. I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”

She gathered her things and used her own scrying bowl to find Snow White. She was hit with a wave of pure pain, and she held her head in her hands before she let herself cry for her former step-daughter. She’d never known that particular pain, had had her first daughter on accident simply because she didn’t know that there were potions she could take for that sort of thing. Now, she was pregnant with twins, and as much as she’d shrieked when she found out, she wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Snow White wanted children. More, she was in pain because of a betrayal from a fellow monarch who had violated the rules of parlay. He had captured her, yes, but even your worst enemies deserved some sort of quarter.

Lancelot knew that, at least. Regina found his camp, and she endured his sword in her face with a pointed look. He dropped it and bowed to her, dark face even darker with a flush that she doubted she would have seen if she hadn’t been looking.

“They’ll be heading for Lake Nostos,” she said. “We should find them and offer our services to them. The older woman, the Prince’s mother, she needs healing.”

It would have gone worse for him if he’d been alone. Instead, Snow White crumpled into Regina’s arms, and she met Prince David, also known as Prince Charming, while staving off some of the poison in his mother’s wound.

“It needs more magic than I’m capable of at the moment. These two take up a lot, and we don’t have ingredients for a potent enough healing potion to make up for the loss.” She had lost almost as much as Amethyst had taken, though she was finding that all of her pregnancies drained her of magic. It was something that she hadn’t noticed with Amber but had become clearer over time. A fully-trained witch knew better than the young woman she had been when her power was weakening.

“Lake Nostos will heal you, my lady,” Snow White said. There was a dark look in her eyes, and she and David had shouted at each other about how she’d lied to him. Regina took the woman’s hand between her own. “Regina, why are you here?”

“My mother is alive, and she’s threatening all of Sherwood Forest. She got past the barrier, and the old magic won’t touch her. Nostos is the only hope I have of protecting my people.”

She didn’t mention that she couldn’t protect herself. If she had to die for her people to live, she would consider it a necessary sacrifice. She had killed her mother, after all, or done as much as she could in order to speed her on her way toward death. _She_ would have hated her for doing that, much less a woman who didn’t have her own heart beating in her chest.

When they reached the lake, Charming very nearly fell to his knees. Regina stared out at the sandy shore, and Snow White held her fiancé up.

“Wait,” she said when Lancelot was holding up the tiniest shell. “I – I think I know what we need to do. Madam, you need to take a drink, first. There will be more, I promise.” There was a vision in her head of a spring bubbling up for a few crucial moments. It was layered with magic, and she could _feel_ the siren who was dead and her rage that someone had realized that his lust for her was not true love. “Her spirit won’t be appeased otherwise.”

The woman took it, but she was crying all the while, and no spring came up. Regina held up her hand, and she went to the skeleton.

“She wants to be remembered. Charming, Snow White, Lancelot, come here. Lancelot, your shield and breastplate.” He laid them at her feet. Regina leaned over them as far as she was able, and she listened. “Your mother was La Maîtresse du Lac, yes? She adopted you?”

“When I was very young. She always said she preferred her other title, because she wasn’t in control of the waters. The Lady of the Lake.”

Then he wouldn’t mind carrying the siren’s image. Regina placed the shield within the bones, and she saw a woman’s hand, rising up out of waters, form upon the shield. Lancelot jumped, and the same relief found its way onto his breastplate. She could hear a rumble of magic under the earth. It promised more, if she would do what it asked.

“Lancelot du Lac,” she said, and she indicated his armor and shield. He took it and put it on, and it fit better than it had before. His eyes went wide, and she smiled.

“The lake wants me to marry you two. To officiate, I mean.” He ducked his head, and Snow White took her prince’s hand. She was beaming.

“And I stand as a representative of Sherwood, which is more than a kingdom. The magic will remember everything. I would say you have a choice, but you really don’t, my dear. Though I doubt you care.”

“No, no, I care. And I’m so happy to be here with you, Regina. Lancelot, how do you do this in Camelot?”

Just as they were about to pour water to share between the two of them, the spring bubbled up. Regina scooped up water for them, and then water for herself. Lancelot wouldn’t drink, and not just because he believed that he’d lost all of his honor when he and Guinevere betrayed King Arthur. She didn’t drink until Snow White and her prince had done so, and she poured out a bit onto the skull. No magic could bring back the dead, but the spirit of the lake was happy with that.

“I don’t have an illness to cure,” Charming said, and Regina let herself laugh with the spirit that she couldn’t quite see. “So, I wish for our kingdoms to be united and at peace, even if it takes war to do it. I pledge my loyalty and love to you, Snow, for the rest of our days.” He drank. She felt the shimmer of magic, and she didn’t voice her wishes aloud while she drank the clear, cold water of Lake Nostos. She didn’t need to. The pressure behind her temple disappeared, and her mother was exiled to Wonderland, with no power to ever hurt the people of Sherwood again. She could and probably would hurt Regina, but that wasn’t important now.

Charming’s mother insisted on using her amulet again, and this time when it started swinging, Charming burst into cheers _and_ into tears.

“What does that one mean?” he asked. Regina knew it meant their firstborn would be a girl, but she kept her mouth shut, and so did Charming’s mother and Snow White. She confided the truth in Lancelot, though, who hugged her and wished them all safe journeys.

“I can’t tempt you to make Sherwood your home, so I won’t try, even if the Merry Men would be happy to have you.” She clasped Lancelot’s arm in her own, as her husband had done with his men before.

“I have to get my honor back before I can pledge myself to anyone, my lady. But thank you. I’ll consider it when the time does come. I doubt I’ll be welcome in Camelot ever again.” The ache in his voice was almost too much for Regina to bear, and it wasn’t even her own pain. She presented her goblet to him, with its small pool of water still resting inside.

He stared.

“I know that you won’t use it for yourself. You should keep it, though.” She put the water in a sealed bottle which would only open if Lancelot truly wanted it, as a protection against her sister stealing it from him or torturing him for it. He ducked his head and let her put it in a chain around his neck. “Good luck.”

“And yourself, my lady.” He bowed to them, and Regina let Snow White feel where one of the twins was pushing at her skin from within. It wasn’t uncomfortable yet, and Snow White was still raw enough to take real joy in this. Their paths parted along the trail, and Charming managed to make her promise that she would be there for the other wedding, the ceremony that they probably wouldn’t have for a while yet, even though Zelena’s power was severely depleted.

They were going to win. And when they did, Sherwood would have allies again. They would stand against the darkness together.

And something in her shivered, because she could sense exactly how dark it really was.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

“Henry? Henry, wake up.”

Emma was driving, and tears were falling down her face. She’d packed up the _fucking poison_ , and she was currently waiting for Regina to pick up her goddamned phone so she would meet them at the hospital, but seeing Henry like that made something in her heart squeeze tight. She wanted him to open his eyes more than anything in the whole world.

No, she decided, after telling Regina that Henry had had some sort of reaction to the apple turnover Leanna had given them. She listened to Regina’s gasp and silence and her growl, and she agreed that what she really wanted was for Leanna to _suffer_. She wanted her dead, and Emma had never wanted anyone dead. Not Neal, not August, no one. But she wanted Leanna dead, because Leanna had done this, she and her _fucking husband_ had done this to Henry, to her baby boy she’d _just met_.

“There are no signs of poison,” Dr. Whale said. “Whatever it is, it’s not that. It’s like a…” He didn’t say curse, but Emma could fill that in for herself.

“Like magic,” she said, looking at Henry’s book. She almost didn’t lay hands on it, too scared to believe it would help, but her eyes skittered over to Henry’s too-still form on the hospital bed.

She opened the book to one of the last pages, and she remembered. She was reading, but she remembered…

_The Guardian of Sherwood had delivered many babies in her time, but as she held this one she felt a surge of power she never had, not even with her own children. Snow White took her, but the Guardian could still feel it. Tinker Bell nodded to her: she had felt the magic too._

_“The wardrobe,” Snow White whispered, tears in her eyes. “Charming, she has to get to the wardrobe. Please.” Her eyes met the Guardian’s, and she remembered when she had just been a girl nearly thrown from her horse. She had imagined that Snow White felt pain then, and fear, but it was nothing compared to the look in her eyes now._

_“Let’s go, quickly,” she said, and she led the way, putting up a shield to protect Snow White before she left her room. Her heart ached for the young woman, but she did her duty. Charming held Emma in his arms for the last time, handing her off to the Guardian when they reached the nursery that would never be used. She put the baby in the wardrobe, looking down at her for a moment. “Find us all,” she murmured, closing it just as Prince Charming was wounded near-fatally._

_Baby Emma would find them. It would be twenty-eight long years of silence, but it would pass in the blink of an eye for the people of the Enchanted Forest._

_Now, though, they had to endure._

Emma was crying when Regina came in the door, Leanna right beside her. Leanna – no, _Zelena_ – went pale when she saw Emma, and Regina shoved her into a supply closet and tipped her head at Emma. Emma followed, snarling at Zelena, who was insisting she’d done nothing wrong.

“Cut the crap, Zelena, the Savior remembers. You’re as good as dead if you don’t tell us how to undo what you did.”

Regina had a rapier in her hand. She’d somehow hidden that from the hospital staff.

Zelena’s eyes narrowed, and Emma glared at her. She was still reeling, still in shock, but she believed, and she remembered. She knew what the Book said, too, even if she didn’t remember those parts. She knew that Zelena wasn’t powerful but that she was clever, and ruthless. She would try to stay alive above all else, even if that meant giving up her revenge.

“I cannot,” she said. “Use your magic, Savior, if you believe I’m lying.” She smiled at Regina. “You should have gone looking for that enchanted ring of yours when you had the chance.”

 _It’s really all your fault_. Emma could hear it loud and clear.

She didn’t stop Regina from punching Zelena in the face. Zelena was surprisingly fragile, and she fell with the blow.

“We have to get help from someone who remembers,” Emma said. Regina had taken _rope_ from her bag and was doing a good job with the knots. “Regina, you have to know _someone_ who remembers. Gold, he’s always been shady, right? Or Graham, I know you two have been sneaking behind Henry’s back. Tell me there’s someone.”

Her voice shook. Regina’s was wooden.

“Belle, the Huntsman, and Rumplestiltskin remember. So does Walsh, the Wizard. But Emma, magic… it’s unpredictable here. If you accepted the apple – the turnover – from him or Zelena, it was meant for you. _You_ would just go into a sleeping trance. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s survivable. Henry… he won’t. Or he will, but it’ll be – he’ll—” Her voice caught.

“We’ll fix it before it happens. Regina, you saved my life, and you’ll save his. I know you will.” She didn’t, but she had to believe. Everything that had happened had happened because Regina had saved her, saved her parents – wow, David and Mary Margaret were her parents, which was going to take some getting used to – and she was the fucking Guardian of Sherwood Forest. She had power, and they’d know how to use it.

They just had to get it back first.

“Your parents’ true love. It’s here,” Regina explained. “Rumplestiltskin – Gold – wouldn’t tell me where, but I think he was waiting for you to remember. We have to go to him.”

A little color had come back to her cheeks. Emma nodded, and they left the Book with Henry, Mary Margaret on her way so that she could watch over him. Graham was on his way to collect Zelena, since she’d given Emma the apple turnover that was responsible for all of this. She’d be in jail before they even got back to the hospital with the true love. It could break any curse.

Both she and Regina balked at the _dragon_ thing.

“Maleficent’s a dragon here. Why am I surprised?” Emma asked. Her father’s sword fit in her hand, which surprised her. She hadn’t thought that she was very manly, but the sword had been made for David. She might have his hands.

Which was a weird thought.

But then, when she climbed up after Rumplestiltskin decided to leave her, all thoughts of _weird_ vanished from her mind. Instead she shook her head, numb, and she didn’t feel the tears until they splashed on her hands. She’d fought – and killed – a _dragon_ , and it was all for nothing. Regina wasn’t crying. There was murder in her eyes.

“We have to get to Henry. There has to be something,” Emma said. “There has to be, right?”

Regina nodded, but Emma could feel the lie even though she hadn’t said a word.

On the drive back to the hospital, Emma fiddled with the sword and its sheath. She wanted to break out into sobs and gibber that this wasn’t fair, but she kept her eyes on the road and held her peace. Regina’s eyes were red-rimmed, and Emma thought about the Book, how she had lost four children and a husband already. Henry was her son too, no matter what Gold said, and she was losing him just like she’d lost everything else.

“What could he need the magic for?” Emma found herself asking. She didn’t expect Regina to respond, so it took her by surprise when her voice filled the space in the car like a death knoll.

“He’s the Dark One. His son ran away to this realm because the magic that the Dark One uses doesn’t work here. Without it, he can’t find Baelfire, but he also can’t keep everyone in check around him. Though Belle would probably stop him from killing anyone she likes. Probably. She loves him, and I know more than anyone that love doesn’t make sense.”

She loved Zelena despite everything. Emma couldn’t help the flinch, and she saw Regina shrug out of the corner of her eye.

“I loved my mother, too, and if the Book is right, Zelena crushed her heart. I threw her through a magic mirror, Emma. Don’t – don’t look at my family to see what love is worth. Or just look at Robin and my children and Tinker Bell. And your parents. They found each other here.”

They pulled in the hospital’s parking lot. Emma could feel the air shift as they went in the Emergency Room doors, and she saw Mary Margaret letting David hold her. That was the first thing that made her stomach swoop and lodge somewhere in her throat. She shook her head even before Mary Margaret opened her mouth, and she heard Regina make a small sound.

It wasn’t human, that sound. It was raw, animal pain, and Emma found herself echoing it. Mary Margaret – _her mother_ – detached herself from David’s arms and held Emma, but she was as stiff as a board. She walked forward and saw that Henry was on the bed, but none of the tubes were connected to the machines. There wasn’t even a heart monitor, but then, they wouldn’t need that anymore. Tears slipped down her face, and she felt the edges of hysteria in her mind. It would eat her alive if she let it.

Regina collapsed in a chair, sobbing. Emma half wanted to turn around and go to her, because she’d lost so much already. She made Emma seem like an idiot, like a little kid, when she thought about how strong she’d had to be. She had gone dark, yes, but she’d come back despite everything.

Emma wasn’t sure she could pull herself out of the pit of despair inside. She touched Henry’s clammy forehead, and tears dripped down her nose and her face. Her neck was cold, which meant she was crying too much.

“I never told you,” she whispered. It was a secret she’d held inside while it grew. She had always loved him, but she’d shoved it into the deepest part of herself, along with the pain. She hadn’t thought she could deal with what loving him meant, when she would never see him again. “I’m so sorry, Henry.”

She leaned in, so only he would hear her. She pushed the hair off his forehead.

“I love you, Henry,” she said, and she leaned down and kissed him.

A wave of pure magic pulsed out, and half of her mind followed it as it spread through Storybrooke. The other half was in the room, her breath caught in her throat because she _knew_ what this meant. It was True Love’s Kiss, and she couldn’t breathe, because if she breathed it meant that it might not have worked, and she’d have to go on. But then Henry’s eyes opened, and he breathed in a gasp of air.

“I love you too,” Henry said, and Emma let out a noise with her breath. So did Regina, who was standing again, and Emma held out her hand so that Regina would take it. She took Emma’s hand, and they stared at Henry. “Mom. _And_ Mom.”

Regina laughed and kissed Henry’s face, holding it in her hands, and Emma felt the magic sweep through the room again. There was a gasp that echoed throughout, and Emma turned around. Mary Margaret and David were staring at her, and then at each other. Dr. Whale looked at his own hands like he didn’t believe them. Mother Superior gaped at everyone, and then composed herself.

She was supposedly the Blue Fairy. She had to have seen at least some of this coming, Emma thought without any heat, her eyes on her – on her _parents_. Mary Margaret was crying again, her hand tight in David’s. Her wedding ring was on her right hand. Emma took note of that so she wouldn’t cry.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. “Oh gods, _Emma_. _Regina._ ” She didn’t look like she knew what to do, except that she wanted to hug someone. That was when Tinker Bell burst through the door, her makeup smeared and tears on her cheeks. She practically threw herself at Regina, who held her like she hadn’t seen her in years. Maybe it was like that. Maybe all over Storybrooke people were reuniting with their loved ones, like Michael and Ava and little Nicholas – and they were Hansel and Gretel, which was so weird.

“Hi,” Emma said, looking at her parents. She didn’t know what she was feeling, except panic made up a huge part of it. She thought she saw David catch that, and he smiled at her. He held in the urge he so clearly had to throw his arms around her, and he was holding Mary Margaret’s hand in his own. She wondered when he’d remember that his mother was in town somewhere.

“You found us,” Mary Margaret said. “You’re grown.”

There was pain there, but David wrapped Mary Margaret in a one-armed embrace.

“Did you doubt her? She’s related to us. Emma, I know this is… weird isn’t actually a strong enough word. And you have my sword, so I’m guessing this is just another notch on the weird day you’re having.”

“Yeah, it really is. I killed a dragon to get a potion that… I’m not sure what Gold – Rumplestiltskin – is going to do with. I don’t know what he _can_ do.”

David and Mary Margaret looked at each other, and it was like they had a whole conversation. She didn’t think that people could do that unless they had years of marriage behind their relationship.

“Lancelot’s here,” Mary Margaret finally said. “He’s bound to Nostos like Regina is to Sherwood. But Regina gave up Sherwood to protect it. He didn’t know.”

“Oh, hell,” David said. “Look out the window.”

There was a purple cloud of magic coming their way.

“Regina!” Emma shouted. Regina and Tinker Bell looked up at the same time, and Mia’s eyes went wide.

“He’s turning us into a gap,” she hissed. Emma wasn’t sure what a gap even was, because it wasn’t in the fucking Book. “Regina, your potion. Where is it?”

“I think Belle gave it to our daughters,” Regina said. Her voice was high and tight. “Brace yourself, Tink.”

The cloud swamped over them in a blink, and Emma heard laughter like waves.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Robin was very glad that he’d caught his daughter sneaking out of Sherwood the night time began again. He wasn’t sure that twenty-eight years had actually passed, to be fair, since no one in Sherwood Forest had aged, and the storm outside their borders had never seemed to end. The day that it did, Heather and Daphne began to run instead of walk, and Roland’s magic seemed to explode in its rapid pace. That was the only hint that Robin had that anything had changed before Amber and Amethyst snuck out of bed.

They had a potion that he recognized, and Amber was insistent that they _had_ to take it to Lake Nostos, because that was the only way that Regina could come back.

“We could go to her, too,” she’d said. “Either way, I want my mother back.” The steel in her tone was a mixture of his stubbornness and Regina’s sheer bloody-minded obstinacy. Robin didn’t know if he was proud or if he wanted to strangle his beloved firstborn. It was probably a mix of both, in the end.

Apparently Belle had given her the potion and told her that she and Amethyst needed to go to Nostos and plant one of the cuttings from Sherwood there, and then “water” it with the potion, which didn’t look much like liquid to Robin. He wasn’t sure what would happen then, but he _was_ sure that he wasn’t letting Amber go alone. Regina would kill him if he did, and besides, everyone wanted to get her back. This land was supposedly the worst of the lot, and Robin doubted that she’d actually want to stay.

Besides, Sherwood was home. Regina loved it even more than he did.

So Robin had arranged a party of people who would take the first voyage to the land without magic, and he hadn’t been at all surprised when Marian was the first to insist to come. Friar Tuck said he was coming because someone needed to make sure Roland didn’t get into trouble, and Little John had picked up the squealing twins without so much as a by-your-leave. Zora’s daughter Maia (Zora having died of old age before the Curse) had agreed to stand as a protector of Sherwood while they went off to fetch their Guardian. In total, fifteen people were coming, and it took some wrangling to make sure that the girls didn’t run off on their own.

“I understand that you’re faster on your own,” he said while they rested. “There are, however, ogres that we have to deal with. I doubt anyone would want you to die just to get a potion to a lakebed. Plus, this way you can practice your sword forms. New ones after twenty years, too.”

It was the only thing keeping Amber from revolting outright. She loved magic, but there were certain things that she couldn’t do until she grew up and gained real control over her emotions. She’d never been taken with the bow (though Amethyst was enough for ten children), but Robin was a fair hand with sword and shield himself. He had been expected, before they lost the land, to take over the care of Loxley, which included keeping up the knights that the King sent to protect them.

It wasn’t Regina’s fencing, but Amber was more like him, or like her aunt, in frame. She would be tall, in the end, and she needed to know how to use that to her advantage.

“The bowl says that Mom misses us,” she said. “You never miss, Papa. If you aimed at an ogre’s eye you’d kill it. We should be going to her.” There was real pain in her voice, and he held his little girl in his arms. She huddled in on herself and cried, and he stroked her hair. “It’s not fair,” she said, finally admitting her hurt.

“I know it isn’t. But you will see your mother again, and it will be as if all of the years have not happened. They haven’t, really. Your fingernails didn’t even grow.”

She let out a peal of bright laughter, and he held her close again. She was too old for this already, eleven and as bloody stubborn-minded as her mother, but she let him for a moment more before she tugged out of his grip and went over to where Amethyst was caring for the sapling that would bear pixie dust when it was old enough. It was possible that the potion would be enough to make it grow, and then the magic would awaken the lake again. He knew little about magical travel, but he didn’t doubt that Belle had truly given them a way to find Regina again.

Bloody Rumplestiltskin had taken her away, even if he’d used Zelena to do it. He’d damn well give her back to them now that he was finished using her for her power. Any debt between them was well and truly paid.

It took some time to reach the lakebed, between the danger and the logistics of transporting fifteen people, some of them babes in arms, across a land that had been ravaged by a curse. They had been blessed, Robin knew, and so much of the Enchanted Forest had not been so lucky. They had a home to go back to when this was all over.

Every night Amber scryed for her mother, and every night she had new information to impart to them. The day that Amber realized that she had a new little brother, Robin felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. She had to find him and explain that he’d been adopted, like the knight Lancelot had been.

She said his name was Henry, and that he was only a little younger than she was.

“At least he’s not older,” was her final verdict. Roland was just excited to finally have another boy to play with, even if he was old enough that he probably wouldn’t find playing with a five-year-old enjoyable. Heather and Daphne didn’t really understand what was going on, except that they were going to Momma. They got excited whenever anyone mentioned Regina, Daphne radiating happiness to the whole camp with her power. She was the only one of their children who was all light magic, which had shocked Robin as much as it had Regina. Amber had no clue how to train her, but luckily she was young enough not to need training.

The day that they reached the lakebed, Amber scryed Regina and Henry once again. She dropped the diamond her mother had left for her into the grass, and she cried all over his shirt.

He couldn’t get the story out of her. He had to hear it from Marian later, after she’d collected Amber and made her calming tea. When he did, he had to go out and shoot trees beside the lake, because he couldn’t shoot anything else. He had experienced grief before, when his father died and when he had had to say goodbye to Regina; he knew it well enough to acknowledge the physical pain along with the emotional side of things. His heart hurt thinking about Regina losing Henry, how she must be feeling even as he shot at target after target.

“I cannot believe that even Zelena would be so cruel,” he said. It was the truth, even if it shouldn’t have been. Little John clapped his shoulder in his hand. “She never killed children before.”

“You don’t know that, Robin,” John said, sighing. “That last year, before the Curse – there were a lot of rumors about what she did. Some of them might even be true. But you shouldn’t focus on that. Your daughter’s about to do what the Dark One’s lover told her she needed to do, and if she’s right, your wife needs you on the other side of whatever portal that’s about to open.”

Robin pulled arrows out of bark and sighed. He had Regina’s necklace with him, but he had no idea how he was supposed to comfort her. They had been lucky to never lose a child; no one in Sherwood had lost a child in more than a decade, not even to the diseases that could take them away so easily. They had lost people to war, but no one had been able to enter their borders to slaughter their weakest citizens.

He doubted he would have known what to say even if they had first-hand experience with this.

“You’re right, of course.” He followed John to their camp, where people were packing up with lighter expressions than he’d expected. “What’s going on?” he asked Marian.

“The Savior broke the Dark Curse on their side. She saved your boy doing it,” she said. Her eyes were suspiciously misty, but he didn’t say anything. He doubted his eyes were clear either, and Marian was ruthless about that sort of thing. “Amethyst says that the Dark One made their little town of people into a gap – like the place you and Regina went to in order to seek the Good Witch’s counsel. Bigger, of course.”

“Of course,” he said. He felt a bit faint. “What does this mean for Sherwood?”

She shrugged, having no knowledge of how the magic worked either. They were both utterly normal, and yet they were married to the most powerful sorceresses in their land. He wondered how that had happened exactly, and he remembered the smell of a well-kept stable and the glint of eyes in darkness. He wasn’t sure how she and Tinker Bell remembered their early days, but that was the only impression he had from before Sherwood truly began, when her friend had appeared in camp and she’d insisted that they refer to her as a fairy, even if she didn’t have any wings.

“We should go make sure they don’t jump in whenever this portal forms,” Marian said, and Robin nodded. They both gathered up their bows, and Robin bumped shoulders with Will so that the man would stop looking like something was going to break.

Amethyst had planted the tree at the edge of the lakebed, where there was packed soil in which it could grow. For the first time in her life she looked more like Tinker Bell than like Marian, her ears pointed at a strange angle and her fingers tapering slightly. They weren’t her mother’s _claws_ , but they promised to become something very much like them if something were to threaten her.

There was no ceremony. Amber had not been raised with the ceremonies her mother had been forced to endure, and Amethyst would probably laugh if they tried to mark the occasion. The only thing either girl did was check that there was no one on the sand, everyone in the forest.

Amber poured out the potion, and Robin watched as part of it hit the sand, and part of it watered the roots. The girls backed away from the tree, which was groaning with the power that was pushing it to grow, and Robin blinked and missed the moment the lake appeared as if it had never dried away.

There was a well on the other side that had not been there before, and a bridge across the water. Waiting on the other side was the Dark One, though Robin had to look twice to recognize him, and Belle, who hadn’t aged a bit. She waved at them, and Robin blinked again when he saw the glint of the dagger on her hip.

She was wearing strange clothes, but Robin would ask her about them when he reached her. He took Amber’s hand in his own, and he looked to see that the twins were secure with the Merry Men, as was Roland.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I’ve been ready for twenty- _nine_ years,” Amber said, and Robin laughed before walking onto the bridge.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

The first hint that Regina got that the Merry Men were in Storybrooke was the sense of Sherwood coming back to her fingers. They tingled, and she shook them out while she waited for Dr. Whale to release Henry to her. Tink was there, and she nodded confirmation that she’d felt it too. Regina jerked her head so that Tink knew that she should go to the well, where the bridge to their realm was waiting. She shook her head, even though Regina knew she wanted to go to them as much as she did.

“And the… sleeping curse,” Dr. Whale said. His lip curled. Regina raised an eyebrow; if he didn’t want his identity broadcast to everyone, she wasn’t going to be the one who did it, but he was doing a good job of that on his own. “What side effects do you know of?”

It took a lot for him to even ask that, she knew. He was a real ass sometimes.

Then again, so was she.

“His dreams won’t be pleasant, but he has enough magic that he’ll be able to learn how to break out quickly. We do need burn salve, especially for the first few nights. It’ll be okay,” she promised Henry. “Mary Margaret can help you. She went through the same thing.”

Henry tilted his head at her. Emma was still making conversation with Charming and Snow White, who were being slightly juvenile about everything. It only made Emma put her back up more, though, and _she_ could be enough of a child to remind Regina of Amber.

“I have magic?” he asked. Tink snorted, and Regina shot a glare at her.

“You have a lot of magic. It comes from both sides of your mother’s family tree.” Caroline Sheppard had come to the hospital and was making the small talk even worse than it had been. Her magic was passive, of course, but there was a reason Rumplestiltskin had chosen to make a deal with her. “I’ll be able to teach you how to control it, but only after you get out of the bad dreams. It really shouldn’t take long, doctor.” She smiled at Dr. Whale, who frowned and shook his head, but not like he was refusing her. More like he was refusing to accept the entire situation, and she smirked.

“Not just his mother,” Tink said, low enough that Henry couldn’t hear. Regina looked at her, and she shrugged. “It wasn’t obvious because I didn’t know I needed to look. But there’s a family resemblance that even I can’t deny.” And there was only one person Tink would hide for her godson’s sake, if it came to that.

Regina was aware that in this realm they called what she was doing dissociating. She felt the blood drain from her face, but it was almost – not quite – as if she were watching herself react, or possibly watching a stranger. She had to shake her head to clear the cotton out of it, and she didn’t know how she was going to explain this to Henry. It would make finding Baelfire easier, but she doubted Emma would be very happy with this plan.

“Hey, Mom?” Henry asked, and Regina made herself small and still so she could calm down. “The prophecy the Dark One gave said that Mom would break the Dark Curse. But that was you, wasn’t it?”

Dr. Whale was pretending without much success that he was _not_ listening to their conversation.

“You’ve always said that Emma was meant to bring back the happy endings,” Regina said. “You have magic.” And possibly the gift of prophecy, considering his paternal grandfather. “What Emma did, when she woke you, was enable those happy endings to return. Our happy ending was the return of everyone’s memories. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of,” Henry said. “What’s that weird tingly feeling?”

Regina smiled, barely keeping herself from beaming outright. He was her son, and his instincts were spot on.

“Sherwood. Everyone in our family – and Tinker Bell’s family – can feel the forest. As soon as your sister finds out where I am, I have no doubt that you’ll be meeting her, as well as your brother. Heather and Daphne aren’t old enough to control their magic yet, but Amber is very responsible. She’ll make sure to bring them.” She bit her lip on the question of if he wanted to meet them yet. Robin wasn’t his father, but he could be, and he was a very good father. She knew that adopting a child could cause difficulties, of course, but they already had so much to deal with concerning Zelena and Gold and Baelfire. She just wanted a break.

She loved her son. She loved all of her children equally. She hoped she didn’t have to explain that, though.

“That’s so cool,” Henry said. She wondered why she had ever worried that he would be jealous of anyone in their family.

Well, he was a blood relation of Gold’s, and Gold was a suspicious man. But he hadn’t been born that way, and Regina reminded herself of that. Neither had Emma, and Regina was doing everything she could to make sure that her son’s life experience was nothing like his mother’s. Either of them, actually.

“I think Robin is making them take the long way, actually,” Tink said, her gaze far away. Regina’s heart stuttered. “Oh, bloody hell, Blue thinks she can get at the pixie dust on the other side while I’m distracted.”

Tink raised her hand and made a gesture in the air, and several nurses moved out of her line of sight.

“There,” she said, smiling. “Sometimes fairies can be idiots about that sort of thing. Remember Henry, pixie dust is only for children and _pixies_.”

“You were a fairy and you stole some,” Henry pointed out. He was listing, and Regina took the burn cream from Dr. Whale before she pulled him close. “You did it for Mom.”

Tink didn’t miss a beat.

“The pixies were extinct then. If someone’s alive and tells you something isn’t yours, you should listen, little man. Are we meeting them halfway?”

Regina held out her hand. Her magic was back, and she could feel the thrum under her skin that would lead her to her family. Tink was the same way, even after so long away from Sherwood.

“I was thinking we’d take a shortcut,” Regina said. Henry took her left hand, and Tink took her right. She followed the pull of magic, and when she opened her eyes she saw Robin. Amber was right beside him, and Marian and Amethyst were behind them. Then Tink was rushing forward without any grace, and Marian and Amethyst were rushing too – say what you would about strange matches, Marian and Tinker Bell had the same lack of restraint when it came to big gestures like this – and they were in a piled up hug.

“Regina,” Robin said.

He didn’t have to say anything else. Regina let Henry lean on her while they walked up to her husband and daughter. She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes, but Robin was actually crying, so it would be worse if she didn’t cry. She hated that she could think like that, but she’d lived under her sister’s thumb for so long that it felt like she couldn’t even pretend to be safe. Even with Robin and the Merry Men.

“Robin. Amber.” She looked at her daughter. Objectively, not a lot of time had passed for them. It didn’t matter, because she’d had the weight of nearly thirty years pressed on her when she decided to believe, and right now she just wanted to be buried in hugs. Amber restrained herself, but Roland didn’t, and Regina held him in her arms. She held out a hand to Amber, who took it and then cried into her shoulder.

The twins were actually running, and Regina stifled the sob in her throat. She kissed every forehead at least twice.

“Momma,” Amber whispered. She hadn’t called her by the diminutive since she was eight.

“I’m here. I’m never leaving any of you again,” she promised. “I take it you know about Henry.”

Robin laughed, and Regina looked up at him from her group hug.

“We learned about the new addition to the family a few days ago,” he said. “Are you quite alright, Henry?”

“I was just asleep,” he complained. “Why am I so tired?”

“Sleeping curses wear you out,” Regina said. “But still…”

“I know, Mom. This is family. It’s so weird, though. You’re my sister, and these are my younger sisters and brother, but they were born before _my_ mom.”

Regina and Robin shared a look, and she silently promised to explain everything later. Now, though, she gestured for Robin to join in. He picked up Heather, leaving Daphne to cling to Regina and spread her feelings around for everyone to have. She didn’t seem to care about anything but getting close to Regina. Amber and Henry were looking at each other, but Roland was staring at Henry like he was some sort of alien. A friendly alien, but an alien nonetheless.

“Tink, how much space do you have in your house?” Regina asked. “I don’t think Emma will be staying at my place tonight, so I have three rooms and a couch. It’ll be more cramped than it was.”

“I think we’re going to be in the one room, so the two others are free. I don’t have a couch, but I could probably conjure up a few beds. Unless you’d all prefer your tents.” She shook her head as if no one should think of doing that. “Two words: air conditioning. The most beautiful thing that the people in this realm ever invented.”

“She’s not wrong,” Regina said. “And I think everyone has had a long day. You all deserve rest in beds. I just need to text Emma and ask if she’s staying at Mary – Snow White’s apartment.” She pulled out her phone awkwardly, and everyone from the Forest stared at her. She hid her smile and asked Emma if she would be staying with her mother in order to get to know her. She wasn’t at all surprised when the text from Emma came in at a record-breaking speed, saying that she hated Regina but that she was being forced into family bonding time.

 _Appreciate it while it lasts, Ms. Swan_ , she texted back. _Trust me, it will not be enough in retrospect. Henry will be staying with me for the night in order to get to know his siblings, but he will be over there tomorrow for a lesson with Mary Margaret in navigating his dreams. Ask your mother about that._

Emma didn’t respond for some time. They’d rearranged things in the living room so that two of the five other Merry Men could sleep there. Friar Tuck and Will were staying close to Marian and Tink, possibly for the liquor as much as for the company. Little John and two others had appointed themselves Regina’s unofficial guards.

 _god i want to kill your sister even more now,_ she texted back, and Regina couldn’t fault her for it. She had the distinct urge to fry Zelena alive herself, even if she’d never do it.

_Welcome to the family, Ms. Swan. We all feel that way._

Regina smiled at the screen, and then at her children. They had taken over Henry’s room, though the twins had beds in Emma’s former room. Henry was close to sleep, but he roused himself every time Roland asked a question that Amber was too old and world-wise to ask. The Merry Men were listening in, and Regina rolled her eyes at the thought that they would be so stubborn that they wouldn’t ask her what things were.

Hands found her shoulders, and Regina leaned into them. There was a vague sensation of pressure, and then her necklace was back on her neck. She held the half-smoothed feather relief in her hand, as she had before everything. People here wouldn’t take her seriously with this.

She didn’t care. She turned to Robin and smiled at him, exhausted beyond belief but also filled from her head to her toes with so much happiness that she couldn’t even express it. Instead she kissed him, and he held her in his arms.

There was time for explanations and plans, but that would all happen later. For now, she just accepted the good things that had come into her life, and she was happy. 


End file.
